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
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 Read the full review
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.
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.
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’twant 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 inventgifting. 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!
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.
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.
The 1908 Tunguska comet changes the direction of history and gives rise to a weird new reality in this acclaimed epic from the Polish author
The opening sentence of this remarkable novel announces that the reader is in for an intriguing experience. “On the fourteenth day of July 1924, when the tchinovniks of the Ministry of Winter came for me, on the evening of that day, on the eve of my Siberian Odyssey, only then did I begin to suspect that I did not exist.” It may hint at Kafka in the ominous arrival of officials, or Borges in its metaphysical conundrum, but stranger things are afoot. In 1924 there was no tsar, let alone his bureaucrats, the tchinovniks. The date is significant, but I don’t mind admitting I had to find out why online. The time, as Hamlet says, is out of joint.
The rudely awakened sleeper is Benedykt Gierosławski, a Polish philosopher, logician, mathematician and gambler whose debts will be erased if he undertakes a special mission for the Ministry. He is to travel to Siberia, “the wild east”, and find his father, Filip, who was exiled there for anti-government activities. This is not clemency. Filip is now known as Father Frost, and as a geologist, radical and mystic, he might have a connection with what has occurred. The reader is drip-fed the details. A comet fell into Tunguska in Siberia in 1908, as it did in our universe. But here the event has caused the emergence of an inexplicable, expanding, possibly sentient coldness called the “gleiss”. Ice, which won the European Union prize for literature, came out in Poland in 2007, well before the Game of Thrones TV adaptation made “winter is coming” a meme; but in this novel, it certainly is.
With a turn by Mark Hamill and a saltily suggestive catchphrase for Patrick, the fourth SpongeBob film shows that anything can still happen in Bikini Bottom
Could the students who snickered their way through those first SpongeBob adventures have foreseen the franchise persisting 25 years on, even after metabolising the most lysergic pharmaceuticals? Such longevity is partly down to extra-commercial considerations, in that the series has a capacity for tickling adults’ funny bones – possibly even those now fully grown students – as well as the very young. Though it can’t claim anything quite as unexpected as the David Hasselhoff cameo in 2004’s The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie – not so much a high bar as an unforgettably wonky one – feature four thinks nothing of making Clancy Brown talk like a pirate while handing royalty cheques to Barbra Streisand and Yello. Anything can still happen in Bikini Bottom.
Preceded by a festive short for Paramount’s other weathered babysitters, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the new SpongeBob film soon settles into a familiarly goofy groove, its script a PG-rated treatise on the pros and cons of growth. This SpongeBob (once more voiced by Tom Kenny) is now 36 clams high, a source of particular excitement as this will allow him to ride the rollercoaster of his dreams. (One early, trippy laugh: our overexcitable hero’s imagined loop-the-loops.) As in the best contemporary American animation, though, the corkscrew plotting is the real rollercoaster. SB’s quest to obtain the fabled swashbuckler certificate that will prove him a “big guy” brings him into conflict with the Flying Dutchman, voiced by the suddenly ubiquitous Mark Hamill.
Memoirs from Liza Minnelli and Lena Dunham, essays by David Sedaris and Alan Bennett’s diaries are among the highlights of the year ahead
Over the past year we’ve been spoiled for memoirs from high-wattage stars – Cher, Patti Smith and Anthony Hopkins among them. But 2026 begins with a very different true story, from someone who never chose the spotlight, but now wants some good to come of her appalling experiences. After the trial that resulted in her husband and 50 others being convicted of rape or sexual assault, Gisèle Pelicot’s aim is to nurture “strength and courage” in other survivors. In A Hymn to Life (Bodley Head, February) she insists that “shame has to change sides”. Another trial – of the men accused of carrying out the Bataclan massacre – was the subject of Emmanuel Carrère’s most recent book, V13. For his next, Kolkhoze (Fern, September), the French master of autofictionturns his unsparing lens back on himself, focusing on his relationship with his mother Hélène, and using it to weave a complex personal history of France, Russia and Ukraine. Family also comes under the microscope in Ghost Stories(Sceptre, May) by Siri Hustvedt, a memoir of her final years with husband Paul Auster, who died of cancer in 2024.
Hollywood isn’t totally out of the picture, though: The Steps(Seven Dials, May), Sylvester Stallone’s first autobiography, follows the star from homelessness in early 70s New York to Rocky’s triumph at the Oscars later that decade. Does achieving your creative dreams come at a price, though? Lena Dunham suggests as much in Famesick (4th Estate, April), billed as a typically frank memoir of how how her dramatic early success gave way to debilitating chronic illness. Frankness of a different kind is promised in More (Bloomsbury, September), actor Gillian Anderson’s follow-up to her bestselling 2024 anthology of women’s sexual fantasies, Want.
Please don’t ever offer me cranberry sauce with my roast turkey – that’s just jam on your Christmas dinner, and who wants that?
As a grumpy old woman in the prime of my pedantry, I have already died on many hills, and I have the scars to prove it. I have sacrificed myself on the battlefield of patriarchy chicken, by walking square into people who stride down the centre of the pavement staring at their phones and expecting everyone else to jump out of their way. I have risked life and limb in a pub full of football fans by declaring my belief that the only “real sports” are running fast, jumping high and throwing or swimming far – the rest are just “games”. And I have driven myself to tears by consistently walking into the same branch of Pret a Manger and ordering the same coffee, please, “and nothing else”, and then standing there blankly when I’m invariably asked, “And anything else?” When it comes to defending arbitrary red lines, my belligerence knows no bounds.
And yet, with Christmas approaching, I have been trembling at the thought of strapping on my armour and fighting yet again for what I truly believe: that meat and fruit should never be served on the same plate. And yes, you perverts, I do mean turkey and cranberry sauce – just stop putting jam on your Christmas dinner!
Katy Guest is a Guardian Opinion deputy editor and a style guide editor
Figures from FoI request show increase in ministerial use of social media personalities to present campaigns
More than half a million pounds has been spent since 2024 on using social media influencers to promote UK government campaigns on subjects ranging from the environment to welfare.
The spending has included hiring 215 influencers since 2024, of which there were 126 in 2025 – an increase on the 89 hired in 2024 – and is seen as an attempt to use platforms such as TikTok to reach younger people.
The award-winning star of Say Nothing and Trespasses refuses to play the fame game when they can fight government inaction. They open up on making amazing TV … and why morals matter more than nice handbags
Few people are less daunted about the prospect of turning 30 than Lola Petticrew. “I used to be so afraid of getting old, and now I just think it’s the best thing ever,” they say. “I feel like I’m just coming into myself. And it feels fucking amazing. I think it’s such a fantastic thing to age – all the shit starts falling away and what you care about becomes more concentrated. I know what I want my life to be now, and I’m pretty stern on it. I don’t have to care about anything else.”
They’re telling me this over Zoom from New York, where Petticrew is shooting Furious, the new show by Elizabeth Meriwether (New Girl, Dying for Sex). Petticrew plays a character who was sex-trafficked as a child and is now out for revenge, tailed by an FBI agent played by Emmy Rossum.
From the Indigenous doctor balancing traditional and western medicine to a father risking death to provide for his family in Gaza, these are some of the people whose determination and bravery stood out
In 2012, Adana Omágua Kambeba travelled 4,000km (2,500 miles) from her home in Manaus, in the Brazilian Amazon, to take up a coveted place to study medicine at the Federal University of Minas Geraisin south-east Brazil. She became the first among her people, the Kambeba, or Omágua, to graduate in the field, still largely dominated by white elites. According to the 2022 census, Indigenous people represented 0.1% of those who graduated in medicine in Brazil.
Adana Kambeba uses the ancestral knowledge of her people alongside conventional medicine in her work. Photograph: Marizilda Cruppe/the Guardian
It was our first joint family Christmas, and I watched fearfully as my mum walked into the kitchen she had once called hers. The next 48 hours were full of surprises
There are still moments I pinch myself: when, over the remnants of turkey and red wine, my divorced parents regale us all with an in-joke from their previous life. When, on the pre-lunch walk, my dad and stepdad stroll in lockstep and talk about finance and even feelings, occasionally. When we’ve all exchanged gifts, and the most thoughtful gifts are not between husband and wife or parent and child, but ones the divorced and remarried couples have given each other.
We’ve been doing this for 25 years now, this joint family Christmas, complete with step-parents, parents and siblings. But every so often, I remember how weird it all once felt. The first time, when I was 11 years old, I watched fearfully as, on Christmas Eve, my mum walked into the kitchen she once called hers. Despite her initial efforts to pretend otherwise, it was clear she still knew where everything lived – and that the next 48 hours would be easier if she admitted it.
When the band played their homecoming shows, the city council attempted to discourage ticketless fans from an area that became known as ‘Gallagher Hill’. But, realistically, nothing could keep them away ...
‘If you lot are listening on the hill … Bring It on Down,” Liam Gallagher said from the stage, dedicating the Oasis track to ticketless fans who had gathered in Heaton Park. When the band played their run of Manchester homecoming shows in July, an estimated 10,000 people made their way to what became known as “Gallagher Hill” over the five-night run.
The Manchester shows were the only UK gigs that took place in a public space, as opposed to stadiums. Manchester city council had warned those without tickets to stay away, going so far as to erect another fence to block the view when word began to spread that people were gathering. But all attempts to discourage them were futile, as word about the “electric” atmosphere spread on social media.
The island nation will take up to 75 migrants, months after lawmakers rejected a previous request from Washington
Palau will take up to 75 migrants from the US in return for additional aid, after the tiny Pacific Island nation signed a memorandum of understanding with Washington on transfer of third-country nationals.
US deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau spoke to Palau president Surangel Whipps in a call on Tuesday about transferring third-country nationals to Palau, the two sides said in separate statements, after Palau’s lawmakers rejected a previous request from Washington on the matter earlier this year.
A car with a “Happy Chanukah” sign has been firebombed in a Melbourne suburb in the early hours of Christmas morning.
The suspected antisemitic incident comes less than two weeks after the terror attack that targeted Jews celebrating the holiday of Hanukah at Sydney’s Bondi beach and claimed 15 lives.
Gaming was once compared to drugs, gambling and alcohol in South Korea. Now its gaming academies offer a chance to earn a six-figure salary – if you make the grade
Son Si-woo remembers the moment his mother turned off his computer. He was midway through an interview to become a professional gamer.
“She said when I played computer games, my personality got worse, that I was addicted to games,” the 27-year-old recalls.
Winning margin of 28,000 votes announced a month late but before review of all ‘inconsistent’ ballots was completed
Donald Trump-backed candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura has been declared the winner of Honduras’s presidential election after a vote count that dragged on for almost a month and was marred by fraud allegations and criticism of interference by the US president.
The rightwing Asfura, 67, a construction magnate and former mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa, secured 40.27% of the vote, against 39.53% for the centre-right Salvador Nasralla, a margin of just 28,000 votes.
Refusing to help those in need is tantamount to rejecting God himself, says pontiff during Christmas Eve mass
Pope Leo has told Christians that the Christmas story should remind them of their duty to help the poor and strangers.
In his Christmas Eve sermon, the pope said the story of Jesus being born in a stable because there was no room at an inn showed followers that refusing to help those in need was tantamount to rejecting God himself.
Governor declared emergency in several counties, with near white-out snow conditions in parts of the Sierra Nevada
A powerful winter storm swept across California on Wednesday, with heavy rain and gusty winds leading to evacuation warnings for mudslides in parts of the southern part of the state, bringing near white-out snow conditions in the mountains and hazardous travel for millions of holiday drivers.
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency in several counties, including Los Angeles.
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