This year has brought us some great movies – and also at least a dozen dire-one star disasters. Here are the Guardian’s critics on the pick of the year’s cinematic calamities

• Guardian readers’ best films of the year
• Peter Bradshaw’s film picks of the year
• More on the best culture of 2025

What we said: “Even the superest superfan of the legendary US TV comedy show Saturday Night Live is going to struggle with the unbearable self-indulgence and self-adoration of this exhausting film from director and co-writer Jason Reitman.” Peter Bradshaw
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© Composite: PR, Alamy

© Composite: PR, Alamy

© Composite: PR, Alamy

Previously vessels would be sunk once they had completed their cargo runs from South America to Europe

The plummeting price of cocaine is forcing drug-traffickers to reuse the “narco-submarines” they would previously have scuttled once the custom-built vessels had completed their cargo runs from South America to Europe, according to a senior Spanish police officer.

While semi-submersible vehicles have been used regularly in Colombia and other parts of South and Central America since the 1980s, they were not detected in European waters until 2006, when an abandoned sub was found in an estuary in the north-west Spanish region of Galicia.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Kateryna Endeberia says teachers made the ‘hurtful’ request when she had difficulty with other subjects

A Ukrainian refugee has been forced to drop out of sixth-form college after she said she was put under pressure to study Russian.

Kateryna Endeberia moved to Stoke-on-Trent after fleeing Ukraine in 2022, after the start of Russia’s invasion.

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© Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian

© Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian

© Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian

Forecasters said Southern California could see its wettest Christmas in years and warned about flash flooding and mudslides.

It felt like nothing would top Tiger Woods’s Masters win, but then the Northern Irishman completed his career grand slam on an extraordinary final day at Augusta

At 7am on 14 April in an Augusta rental home, Rory McIlroy awoke and immediately spotted a Green Jacket draped over a chair. “You think: ‘Yeah, that did happen yesterday,’” he says. “That.” McIlroy was now the sixth man to win all four of golf’s majors.

The detail of what lay around in the bedroom of my own Augusta billet is of no interest to anybody. That was, however, a memorable morning. I had previously and wrongly believed nothing would top Tiger Woods’s 2019 Masters win in respect of seismic reaction. Scores of messages from friends, colleagues, family members – umpteen of whom have no interest whatsoever in golf – had landed. Broadcast outlets across the world wanted my assessment of what had played out on Masters Sunday. Yeah, that did happen yesterday.

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© Photograph: Augusta National/Getty Images

© Photograph: Augusta National/Getty Images

© Photograph: Augusta National/Getty Images

Penguins hand over pebbles; scorpionflies give spitballs. But I’m hankering after a sea sponge presented by a dolphin

This Christmas morning, are you worried you didn’t choose quite the right gift for that someone special? I always try my hardest, but everywhere I turn I’m bombarded with unhelpful suggestions. No, I don’t want a candle that smells like turkey, because, well, we’ll be cooking turkey. Nor do I want a sunrise alarm clock that mimics natural light, because I can leave the curtains open. And I definitely don’t want a salmon DNA pink collagen jelly mask (Good Housekeeping’s Best for Beauty Lovers), because said DNA comes from milt. AKA semen. If I wanted fish sperm on my face, I would tickle some pollocks.

So if, like me, you’re always looking for inspiration, my advice is: learn from the animal kingdom. Humans didn’t invent gifting. The practice has been around for at least 100m years, long before our species evolved. With a little help from natural selection, this has given wild animals ample time to perfect the art of giving. Hell, some spiders even gift-wrap!

Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of Bring Back the King: The New Science of De-Extinction

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© Photograph: Rebecca Yale/Getty Images

© Photograph: Rebecca Yale/Getty Images

© Photograph: Rebecca Yale/Getty Images

The author and mental health campaigner on not fitting in at school, being on the Covid frontline, and how grief inspired him to help others

Born in Carmarthen in 1991, Dr Alex George is a former NHS doctor, an author and a mental health campaigner. After studying medicine at the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry, he worked as an A&E doctor in London before joining the cast of 2018’s Love Island. In 2021, he was appointed the UK government’s youth mental health ambassador. He is the author of five books; his latest, Happy Habits, is out now, with Am I Normal? published on 15 January.

Mum loved to make outfits for special occasions, and Christmas was no exception. It was an important time of year for our family; she was determined for us to experience the magic of tradition. It would have been a small, intimate day in Capel Dewi in Carmarthenshire – just me, my parents, my two brothers and my grandmother.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of Dr Alex George

© Photograph: Courtesy of Dr Alex George

© Photograph: Courtesy of Dr Alex George

Peter is waging war on the water company but Winnie feels his policing of usage is overbearing. You decide whose argument gets flushed away

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Peter nags me not to flush the toilet after a wee, which is gross. I’m not up for being monitored

Everyone lets these water firms do what they like. It’s time to fight back. So we need to cut our usage

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© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

© Illustration: Igor Bastidas/The Guardian

Rising numbers of people flee jihadists, as violence against civilians increases and foreign aid dwindles

More than 300,000 people have been displaced by an Islamic State insurgency in Mozambique since July, amid growing fears that authorities lack a workable plan to end the fighting.

With wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan attracting more attention and foreign aid falling, the grinding conflict in Mozambique has been largely ignored or forgotten. More than 1 million people have been displaced, many of them two, three or even four times.

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© Photograph: Diego Menjibar Reynes/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Diego Menjibar Reynes/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Diego Menjibar Reynes/AFP/Getty Images

Dear Abby advises a person who loves their partner but hates the arguments they have over their vastly different political viewpoints.

The North has indicated it plans to arm the submarine with nuclear weapons, calling it a “strategic guided missile submarine” or a “strategic nuclear attack submarine.”

Derek Swanson, 40, took a picture of himself beaming in a dentist's chair on March 3, 2023. He captioned the photo: "Yesterday, new car. Today, implant! Fun never stops."

Pope Leo XIV greeted the soggy faithful in St. Peter’s Square in both English and Italian and apologized that there wasn’t enough room in the basilica for them all.

© Andreas Solaro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Justice Department sued the state over the law in February

© AFP via Getty Images

The era of a single player dominating snooker appear to be over with an unprecedented number of tournament winners emerging this season

© Martin Rickett/PA Wire

One elephant, believed responsible for two deaths, was shot dead in Kajiado County

© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Michael Caine starred in the 1992 children’s film alongside a cast of puppets

© Disney

‘The fact that people found it funny shows exactly what they think of me,’ director said

© Getty Images

© Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Screenwriter Mike Binder ended up directing 2006’s ‘Man About Town’ himself and described the alleged incident on a podcast

© Getty

© PA Wire

In April, the UK’s highest court ruled that the legal definition of a woman should be based on biological sex. Nicole Wootton-Cane speaks to five transgender Britons about how they feel the decision has affected their lives, and what comes next

© PA

Britain is accused of undermining a key aid pledge to support Sudan after failing to maintain the flow of aid as refugees flee to South Sudan, reports Nick Ferris. Stories from the border between the two countries reveal just how devastating the cuts have been

© Herison Philip Osfaldo/Oxfam

Photos show largely completed hull of new submarine

© KCNA via AP