Five of the best ... films

1 The Party (15)

(Sally Potter, 2017, UK) 71 mins

This sharp chamber piece could almost be a lost 1960s play, with its old-school theatricality and middle-class savagery. Kristin Scott Thomas plays a politician whose promotion celebration is upstaged by the revelations of her husband Timothy Spall and guests including Patricia Clarkson, Cillian Murphy, Cherry Jones and Emily Mortimer. Oh, and there’s a gun.

2 The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (15)

(Noah Baumbach, 2017, US) 112 mins

Familiar territory here, in a Woody-Allen-meets-Royal-Tenenbaums way, as we visit another cultured New York family with a patriarch (Dustin Hoffman) and his messed-up kids (Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler, Elizabeth Marvel). The plot isn’t as inevitable as expected, and there’s enough wit and warmth to justify the exercise. Stiller, in particular, is a revelation.

3 Blade Runner 2049 (15)

(Denis Villeneuve, 2017, UK) 163 mins

Back to the future with a slow and spectacular sci-fi that honours its predecessor without replicating it. Ryan Gosling is our lonely sleuth, following a thread that threatens to unravel the slave-based dystopia, or at least bring Harrison Ford out of retirement.

4 The Ornithologist (NC)

(João Pedro Rodrigues, 2016, Por/Fra/Bra) 118 mins

A journey into surrealism, gay erotica and biblical allegory – not far from Weerasethakul, Pasolini or Jodorowsky. A birdwatcher is in the wilds of Portugal and encounters everyone from sadistic Chinese pilgrims to a handsome shepherd called Jesus.

5 Boy (15)

(Taika Waititi, 2010, NZ) 88 mins

You’ll be hearing a lot more about Waititi when Thor: Ragnarok comes out, but this, his feature debut, is more in the fashion of his Hunt for the Wilderpeople – unpretentious and often drily hilarious, but touching, too. It’s centred on a Michael Jackson-loving 1980s Maori kid (Boy is actually his name) reconnecting with his supposedly “gangster” father (played by Waititi himself).

SR

Five of the best ... pop and rock gigs

1 St Vincent

After going full kook on 2014’s St Vincent album, Annie Clark has ratcheted through the art-pop gears for this month’s Jack Antonoff-produced Masseduction, setting the album in a visual world of clean lines, neon pink PVC and glossy surrealism. Expect the unexpected, basically.
London, 17 October; Manchester, 18 October; Dublin, 20 October; touring to 21 October

2 Future

Croaky rapper Nayvadius DeMun Wilburn, AKA Future, has had a pretty busy 2017. As well as releasing two albums back-to-back (both US No 1s, incidentally), he also created one of this year’s many meme-ready hip-hop anthems in the shape of the darkly brooding Mask Off.
Manchester Academy, 20 October; touring to 23 October

3 The Breeders

Initially started as a side-project for Kim Deal while her main employers the Pixies were on hiatus, the Breeders are rightfully now Deal’s main focus. To prove her commitment, she’s got the original, Last Splash-era band back together, with recent single Wait in the Car – the lineup’s first new offering since 1993 – a playful reminder of their skewed majesty.
Glasgow, 15 October; Dublin, 16 October; Manchester, 17 October; London, 18 October

4 Zara Larsson

While this year’s patchy international debut, So Good, couldn’t quite live up to that title, 19-year-old Swedish pop star Zara Larsson remains roughly a thousand times more interesting than most of the beige bores that pepper the musical landscape. Expect a lorryload of attitude and impeccable sass.
Belfast, 15 October; Dublin, 16 October; Glasgow, 18 October; Newcastle upon Tyne, 19 October; touring to 28 October

5 Ibeyi

French-Cuban twin sisters Lisa-Kaindé Diaz and Naomi Diaz’s recently released second album, Ash, continues their open-mindedness when it comes to genre definitions but offers a more focused lyrical palette, tackling spirituality, activism and racism.
Bristol, 18 October; London, 19 October; Manchester, 20 October

MC

Four of the best … classical concerts

1 Polish Music Day

Violinist Jennifer Pike leads a day of concerts exploring five centuries of Polish instrumental and chamber music. Pike kicks things off with Penderecki’s Capriccio for solo violin; later there are works by Lutosławski and Szymanowski, Wieniawski and Chopin, as well as recent pieces by Mikolaj Górecki and Paulina Załubska.
Wigmore Hall, W1, 14 October

2 Jeremy Denk

US pianist Jeremy Denk is artist-in-residence at Milton Court this season, and the centrepiece of his first group of appearances is an all-day triptych of themed concerts. There’s a morning sequence about death, and an afternoon one concerned with keyboard virtuosity, while the evening has variations about “Heartbreak … and Hope”.
Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music, EC2, 15 October

3 Wexford Opera festival

Wexford has built its reputation on staging forgotten operas, but its 2017 season opens with virtually a repertory piece; Cherubini’s Medea, directed by Fiona Shaw with Lise Davidson as the tragic protagonist. The other featured works are genuine rarities, though; Jacopo Foroni’s Margherita, and Risurrezione by Franco Alfano.
National Opera House, Wexford, 19 October to 5 November

4 Melos Sinfonia: Written on Skin

George Benjamin’s opera has led a charmed life since its debut in 2012, with performances at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and beyond. Here, though, is another take: a touring production directed by Jack Furness, with Oliver Zeffman conducting the Melos Sinfonia.
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, 19 October; LSO St Luke’s, EC1, 20 October

AC

Five of the best … exhibitions

1 Ilya and Emilia Kabakov

The Kabakovs have created some of the most poetic and captivating installations ever. Perhaps there is a special Russian affinity for this art: the spiralling interiors of Russian churches are echoed by the Kabakovs’ fascinating spaces. Yet Ilya began his career designing dreams on paper while he worked as a children’s illustrator. A hundred years after the October Revolution, this is a fascinating view of the last days of the Soviet utopia and its aftermath in the imagination.
Tate Modern, SE1, 18 October to 28 January

2 Soutine’s Portraits

The expressionist portraits of Chaïm Soutine stick out like a sore, slightly septic thumb among the abstract paintings, art deco interiors and surrealist stunts of Paris between the wars. The paintings here look behind the high life of cafes and grand hotels, at bellboys and kitchen staff. Soutine’s anti-glamorous portraits are the visual equivalent of George Orwell’s account of the city’s underside in Down and Out in Paris and London.
The Courtauld Institute of Art, WC2, 19 October to 21 January

3 Rebecca Warren

Where does the human body fit into modern sculpture? Is it something to depict or something to evoke sensually? Warren offers provocative answers to such questions as she explores the erotic, organic and abstract in highly original forms that knowingly parody French rococo porcelain to Brancusi and Bourgeois. A slobbering, molten carnality pervades everything this gutsy artist makes.
Tate St Ives, 14 October to 7 January

4 Wim Wenders’ Polaroids

The films of Wim Wenders are cool yet poetic chronicles of changing times, with his masterpiece Wings of Desire preserving the look and mood of Berlin before the Wende. His Polaroids have the same poignant perceptiveness. These pre-digital instant photographs constitute a visual diary of life and art in the 1970s and 80s and have been put on show by the director with a sense of nostalgia and the mystery of memory.
The Photographers’ Gallery, W1, 20 October to 11 February

5 Susan Philipsz

One of the most convincing Turner prize winners of recent years unveils a new sound work inspired by Karl-Birger Blomdahl’s 1959 sci-fi opera Aniara. Would-be travellers to Mars have become stranded in space. Their pleading voices drift through the gallery from multiple speakers, in what promises to be a haunting evocation of a rootless world with no direction home. The artist also pays homage to David Bowie and sings the Internationale.
BALTIC, Gateshead, 20 October to 4 March

JJ

Five of the best … theatre shows

1 Dr Seuss’s The Lorax

Max Webster’s deliciously inventive staging of David Greig’s stage adaptation of Dr Seuss’ environmental fable was first seen at London’s Old Vic in 2015; Michael Billington hailed it as “the best family show since Matilda”. Now it returns for another run, with Charlie Fink’s tuneful score, Greig’s facility with rhyming couplets and some magical puppetry making it a surefire hit with junior eco-warriors and their parents, too.
Old Vic, SE1, 15 October to 5 November

2 Horizontal Collaboration

“Someone has been telling lies about Judith K,” is the Kafka-esque beginning of David Leddy’s play about truth and perception. The audience must play jury in a chamber piece that draws on the biblical story of Judith, who enters the Assyrian general Holofernes’s tent and cuts off his head. The play takes place during a UN tribunal considering war crimes in an unnamed African country, gnawing away at the truth to present a powerful portrait of power abused.
St Andrews, 14 October; Lockerbie, 17 October; Thornhill, 18 October; Musselburgh, 20 October; touring to 5 November

3 Golem

If you have not caught 1927’s delicious show about the relationship between humankind and machines, then you should do so before it’s too late. This vivid mix of animation, live action and music is a parable for our times, particularly as predictions grow for the number of jobs that will eventually be automated. There is nothing luddite about either the sentiment or the stagecraft in an evening of real satiric wit.
Liverpool Playhouse, 18-21 October

4 Hair

First seen at the thriving Hope Mill in Manchester in 2016, Jonathan O’Boyle’s revival of the 1967 musical is rough and ready, but like the show itself it has a sweetness and a rough charm. The underground Vaults should be the ideal London venue for a piece that really doesn’t make much narrative sense but boasts some terrific songs, and is here performed by an engaging ensemble of youngsters who make you want to join in and dance.
The Vaults, SE1, to 13 January

5 Jane Eyre

It is your very last chance for Sally Cookson’s passionate staging of Charlotte Brontë’s much-loved novel, which has returned to the NT for one last bow. This is an evening full of theatrical invention and one that proves that it is possible to be true to the spirit of a novel without being in the slightest bit literary. It’s also a show that demonstrates that page-to-stage adaptation doesn’t have to be theatre’s poor cousin.
National Theatre: Lyttelton, SE1, to 21 October

LG

Three of the best ... dance shows

1 Kenneth MacMillan: A National Celebration

Britain’s leading classical companies including the Royal Ballet pay tribute to the great choreographer 25 years after his death. Includes the rarely seen Baiser de la Fée.
Royal Opera House, WC2, 18 October to 2 November

2 Aditi Mangaldas: Inter_rupted

The Kathak choreographer performs alongside her own company in her experimental piece, exploring notions of fragility and transience.
Tramway, Glasgow, 20-21 October

3 Lyon Opera Ballet: Trois Grandes Fugues

The choreographic trio of Lucinda Childs, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and Maguy Marin respond to Beethoven’s Grande Fugue in their own distinctive styles.
Sadlers Wells, EC1, 19-20 October

JM