Five of the best ... films

1 Call Me By Your Name (15)

(Luca Guadagnino, 2017, Ita/Fra/Bra/US) 132 mins

Summer romances don’t come more idyllic than this: Italian countryside, tanned bodies, ripe apricots and high-cultural milieu. It’s a simple story made complex by detail, character depth and languorous sensuality. An Adonis-like American student (Armie Hammer) comes to study with the father of a precocious yet unformed teenager (Timothée Chalamet).

2 Thor: Ragnarok (12A)

(Taika Waititi, 2017, US) 130 mins

A rollicking romp of a superhero movie, whose tireless stream of self-parodying gags and 1980s design make up for the lack of substance. After a series of mishaps, Chris Hemsworth’s Thor gets stranded on Jeff Goldblum’s trash planet, where he teams up with old friends. It plays its Flash Gordon-style sci-fi plot for laughs – and gets them.

3 The Death of Stalin (15)

(Armando Iannucci, 2017, Fra/UK) 104 mins

Reminding us that ineptitude and self-serving duplicity are nothing new in politics, Iannucci applies his satire to the Soviet power vacuum of the 1950s. A dream cast enacts this period power-play.

4 Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (15)

(Sophie Fiennes, 2017, Ire/UK) 115 mins

A subject as unique as Jones was never going to make for a run-of-the-mill rockumentary. Following the performer across the world for many years, this film preserves her mystique but gives glimpses behind the persona. There are commanding concert numbers but no nostalgic archive footage, keeping the artist in the present tense.

5 Secret Superstar (12A)

(Advait Chandan, 2017, Ind) 150 mins

Mixing progressive politics and Bollywood crowd-pleasing, this tale of singing stardom is refreshing and feelgood. Zaira Wasim plays a Mumbai Muslim who goes against her father’s wishes by performing behind a burqa on YouTube. Even with guidance from Aamir Khan’s outlandish mentor, her road to stardom is not straightforward.

SR

Five of the best ... pop and rock gigs

1 Moses Sumney

After a handful of delicately sketched EPs, LA art-soul crooner and Solange collaborator Moses Sumney’s debut album Aromanticism dived headlong into the soulitude hinted at in the title. Full of elegantly drawn out, jazz-tinged, cosmically inclined soul, it’s an album that demands your full attention.
Brighton, 30 October; London, 31 October

2 Camille

French pop royalty – her first album in six years, Ouï, recently topped the charts there – Camille, like Björk, experiments with the variations in her voice to give her intricate songs a sense of texture and dynamic. A recent performance on Jools Holland also featured a cast of drummers marching through the crowd, so brace yourselves for that.
Barbican Hall, EC2, 30 October

3 Clean Bandit

Despite three UK number ones, including last year’s Sean Paul-assisted festive chart-topper Rockabye, chances are you’ve walked past one of fiddle-bothering dance-pop boffins Clean Bandit without even realising. With new single I Miss You also relying on a proper pop star (Julia Michaels) to do the heavy-lifting, that anonymity looks set to continue.
Glasgow, 29 October; Cambridge, 30 October; Bournemouth, 31 October; London, 2 November; Birmingham, 3 November; touring to 7 November

4 Muna

In the UK to support satin-suited 70s rock god impersonator Harry Styles on his sold-out tour, LA-based trio Muna slip out for a night of their own to rattle through this year’s excellent About U album. Expect massive choruses, empowering speeches and, given it’s Halloween, perhaps a little trick or treating.
Heaven, WC2, 31 October

5 Logic

Maryland rapper Logic’s album Everybody – a meditation on race, religion and, well, social media – has so far spawned one gargantuan hit in the shape of 1-800-273-8255 (the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US). Listen out for that one on this brief UK tour.
London, 31 October; Manchester, 1 November; Birmingham, 2 November; touring to 5 November

MC

Five of the best ... classical concerts

1 Voice of Istanbul

Jordi Savall and his period-instrument band Hesperion XXI bring their latest historical confection to Britain, based on a 17th-century collection of Turkish, Armenian and Sephardic works, laments, dances and songs.
St George’s, Bristol, 28 October; Wigmore Hall, W1, 29 October

2 Iolanta

Scottish Opera’s music director Stuart Stratford launches another Sunday afternoon series with Tchaikovsky’s final opera. Gulnara Shafigullina sings the title role of the blind princess, with Alexey Dolgov as Vaudémont, the knight whose love restores her sight.
Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 29 October

3 The Consul

Once hugely popular, Gian Carlo Menotti’s operas have almost vanished from sight since his death. But the first of his full-length stage works gets a rare revival from the Guildhall School. Stephen Medcalf stages The Consul, whose subject matter – a wife attempts to leave a police state to join her husband – has an all-too-topical relevance.
Guildhall School of Music & Drama, EC2, 30 October, 1 November and 3 November

4 The Bear

Mid Wales Opera takes Walton’s boisterous one-act comedy on the road. The touring production by MWO’s SmallStages team is directed by Richard Studer with a cast of three and an ensemble of five.
Llandinam Village Hall, 2 November; Llanfair Caereinion Institute, nr Welshpool, 3 November; touring to 3 December

5 BBC Symphony Orchestra

A contemporary of Pierre Boulez, Betsy Jolas has continued composing into her 90s. Her 2015 work for piano, trumpet and orchestra, Histoires Vraies, gets its UK premiere in the BBC SO’s concert.
Barbican, EC2, 3 November

AC

Five of the best ... exhibitions

1 Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile (1870-1904)

The Franco-Prussian war in 1870 drove a generation of young artists to flee Paris for London. Known as the impressionists, their brushwork was inspired, in some small part, by the smoke and clouds of Victorian London. While here, Monet and Pissarro painted some of the loveliest views of the capital and its suburbs. Tate Britain gets a shot of continental sophistication from the most seductive of modern art styles.
Tate Britain, SW1, 2 November to 7 May

2 Monochrome: Painting in Black and White

Renaissance artists used black and white to create magical effects, making a painting look like a sculpted relief or reproducing the grim colours of death. This exhibition juxtaposes their experiments with 20th- and 21st-century artists who deliberately restrict colour. See the works of Dürer and Rembrandt next to Bridget Riley and Gerhard Richter.
The National Gallery, WC2, 30 October to 18 February

3 Age of Terror: Art Since 9/11

Is this really an age of terror? This survey of art and conflict since 11 September 2001 tries to define recent art through the repercussions of the New York attacks. The mix of artists here – from Grayson Perry and the Chapmans to Ai Weiwei and Gerhard Richter – offers an overview of how art has responded to the crises of the past 16 years. Yet it has been shaped by a lot of things other than “terror”.
Imperial War Museum, SE1, to 28 May

4 NOW: Susan Philipsz

Storytelling is the theme of this state-of-the-art survey. How do artists tell tales in the 21st century? Susan Philipsz does it with sound. Her latest audio installations lead the exhibition, allowing the hearer to sense half-known narratives of loss. Kenya-born Michael Armitage uses more traditional means of painting to tell stories of the post-colonial world, while Kate Davis explores the nature of history through printing and book-making.
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 28 October to 18 February

5 Wildlife Photographer of the Year

This perennial favourite always draws crowds and it is not hard to see why. Beautiful images show animals from insects to whales in captivating closeup. Yet this panorama of nature is not some expertly made film production to watch passively on TV. Here are amateur and professional pictures by enthusiasts of all ages. A celebration of our passion for recording natural wonders.
Natural History Museum, SW7, to 28 May

JJ

Five of the best … theatre shows

1 This Beautiful Future

Wartime France in 1944. Small-town teenager Elodie is in love with Otto, a 15-year-old German soldier who still believes in victory even though the Americans are on their way. Rita Kalnejais’s play – as delicate as an egg – is a strange, always fascinating thing, a piece about optimism and miracles even when being crushed under the boot of history. It gets a great production from Jay Miller at one of London’s most essential theatres.
The Yard, E9, 2-25 November

2 Beowulf

This is such a neatly put together piece of theatre, full of poetry and panache. The old English poem gets a suitably epic framing – Beowulf is a warrior rock star giving one last performance – in a show in which Chris Thorpe’s sweaty, poetic text pays homage to the original and succeeds in Justin Audibert’s smart staging in seeming both ancient and entirely contemporary. There is a brilliant performance from Debbie Korley in 80 challenging but rewarding minutes aimed at audiences aged eight to adult.
Unicorn theatre, SE1, to 5 November

3 People, Places & Things

Emma is an actor. She is also an addict. She needs help. But does she really want it? When she does enter rehab, she resists with all the cynicism she can muster. The play put not just a match but an inferno under the career of Denise Gough, who originated the role of Emma at the NT, but Duncan Macmillan’s darkly comic play remains a fascinating, multi-layered evening in this revival starring Lisa Dwyer Hogg.
Bristol Old Vic, 28 October; Northcott theatre, Exeter, 31 October to 4 November

4 The Seagull

Chekhov’s early play gets a makeover in Simon Stephens’s new version, which plays on both the illusions of theatre and the delusions of the characters. Sean Holmes’s modern-dress production has a studied, sturdy confidence as it excavates both the comedy and the tragedy of a scenario in which the older generation destroys the idealism and hope of the young with casual cruelty.
Lyric Hammersmith, W6, to 4 November

5 Labour of Love

Martin Freeman and Tamsin Grieg star in James Graham’s deft and enjoyable comedy about internal Labour politics and ideological rifts spanning the years 1990 to the present. It’s not nearly as dry as that makes its sound, with Freeman – playing a Nottinghamshire MP – and Greig, as his electoral agent, sparking off each other to terrific comic effect in a relationship that offers shades of Much Ado About Nothing.
Noël Coward theatre, WC2, to 2 December

LG

Three of the best ... dance shows

1 Igor and Moreno: Andante

The duo go on another wild choreographic tangent as they use smoke and scents to disorientate their audience.
The Place, WC1, 2-4 November

2 Birmingham Royal Ballet

A triple bill featuring a new score by John Harle accompanying Ruth Brill’s Arcadia, plus Michael Corder’s setting of Stravinsky’s Le Baiser De La Fée and Bintley’s Still Life at the Penguin Café.
Sadler’s Wells, EC1, 3-4 November

3 Charge

Motionhouse return with their latest piece of dance theatre using movement, music and visuals to evoke the power of electricity.
The Roses Theatre, Tewkesbury, 31 October; Dance City, Newcastle upon Tyne, 3-4 November

JM