May need to schedule a couple of Tom Stoppard double bills soon...

My late Mum's programme for Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, which we saw at the NT in spring 1993. That cast, though...

Genuinely saddened by this. I tried to interview him for two of my books; I still have his gracious demurral on elegant notepaper. The NT production of Arcadia is indelible in my mind, and his scripts for Shakespeare in Love and The Russia House are sublime. RIP. www.theguardian.com/stage/galler...

Good to see Shepherd's brilliant performance in Peter Flannery & Helena Kennedy's 1988 TV series Blind Justice mentioned here - a show so anti-establishment (the original title was Radical Chambers) that the BBC never repeated it or released it on video or DVD... www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Share a ‘90s movie you think deserves more love

🎂 Happy 25th birthday to my first Q&A book, #SmokingInBed: Conversations with Bruce Robinson. It was a Pick of the Week for Nicholas Lezard, a Book of the Year for David Hare and a career-starter for me. So here's to it, and the inimitable Mr Robinson, and everyone who's ever read it and loved it!🍷

I reviewed my favourite reads of 2025 for Shepherd Books: Year of the King by Antony Sher from @nickhernbooks.bsky.social, Karla's Choice by @nickharkaway.com and The Proof of My Innocence by @jonathancoe.bsky.social. I was asked to rank them, but all are first class... shepherd.com/bboy/2025/f/...

🎂 Happy 2nd Birthday to my 5th Q&A book, #TheMirrorAndTheRoad: Conversations with William Boyd. Observer, Independent, iNews & TLS all called it "fascinating", and Slow Horses author Mick Herron hoped to find it in his Christmas stocking. Cheers to that! 🍾 www.alistairowenwriter.com/the-mirror-a...

Every word... more people with RTD's clout and influence need to be standing up and speaking out in this way. "Censorship is in us." TV needs leaders and champions who stand up for the world we want to see and be. "TV is a light in the dark and we must not let that flame go out!"

I've now talked to three different people with very varied tastes and, like me, they all gave up on The Thursday Murder Club after 20 minutes. Does Netflix's "No. 1 in Movies" algorithm tell them when viewers have bailed on a film cos it's unmitigated shit...?

🎂 My second literary birthday this week - 5 years since I published my debut novel, The Vetting Officer, first on Kindle and later in paperback. Part spy yarn, part love story, it earned a "Bravo!" from William Boyd, and a modest sense of pride from me! 🍾 www.alistairowenwriter.com/the-vetting-...

"I watch her. I assume she watches me." Everything you might expect from director Steven Soderbergh and Panic Room writer David Koepp, and perhaps a little bit more: sleek, smart, stylish, slyly witty and coolly seductive. Mr & Mrs Smith meets Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, by way of The Ipcress File.

🎂 Happy 20th birthday to my third Q&A book, Hampton on Hampton - conversations with playwright, director & Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher Hampton. A book of the year in the Observer, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ on Amazon & also available from @faberbooks.bsky.social. 🍾 www.alistairowenwriter.com/hampton-on-h...

"I'm a story that I tell people..." Like Jason Bourne with laughs or Quentin Tarantino with heart, this super-stylish 6-parter from @joebarton.bsky.social is even more entertaining on 2nd viewing - episode 5, in particular, funnier than most romcoms amid the gunplay and bloodshed. Season 2, please!

Starting shortly after he swapped the Westminster village for a walled garden in Northumberland, and ending on the day the Queen died, the fourth volume of diaries by @chrismullinexmp.bsky.social is as invaluable as its predecessors in tracking where we are as a nation, and how on earth we got here.

The Owen oeuvre, canon, or body of work. #worldbookday

"All I am is what I'm going after." Epic in scope, intimate in detail, and crafted with breathtaking precision, Michael Mann's crime classic hasn't dated a day in nearly three decades - and makes most current Hollywood movies look pretty puny by comparison.

"The less you know, the better you sleep." Series 1 of Ben Chanan's conspiracy thriller was good. Series 2 is better: tense, twisty and unsettling - though it's ironic that a drama about data manipulation has been quietly recut from a neat 6 parts to a messier 8 on its way from the Beeb to Netflix.

"It's always the question that involves the listener. It's never the answer." The opening is so dry (even after skipping the titles) that I nearly gave up. But then I'd have missed a mixture of Kubrick's formalism, Polanski's suspense and Todd Field's own brand of cool detachment. Compellingly odd.

🎂 Happy 22nd birthday to my second Q&A book, Story and Character: the first (and, to date, only) book of interviews exclusively with British screenwriters - including Lee Hall, @frankcottrellboyce.bsky.social, Shawn Slovo, Hossein Amini and Neal Purvis & Robert Wade. 🍾 bit.ly/story-character

"What a lovely thing she was..." The story is absurd, the characters cardboard, the dialogue clunky and the direction workaday, but I love it anyway - for Alec Guinness's moving cameo, for John Barry's magnificent score, for the Titanic surfacing again. A not-so-guilty pleasure.

"Certainty is the enemy of unity." The best adaptation so far, by far, of a Robert Harris novel, thanks to a taut script by Peter Straughan, powerful direction by Edward Burger, towering performances across the board - and a twist that stuns even more on screen than it did on the page. Riveting.

Just realised that last Wednesday was the 24th birthday of my 1st book, Smoking in Bed: a distillation of 30 hours of wine-fuelled conversations between a wide-eyed film fan and the cult creator of #WithnailAndI. So, belatedly - chin-chin, Mr Robinson!🍷

"You can't collaborate in anything without love." David Hinton's feature documentary, passionately fronted by Martin Scorsese, is a wonderful, beautiful love letter to British cinema, right up there with the AFI's classic film about cinematography, Visions of Light. Moving, thrilling and inspiring.

"The world's a hungry place." Bridging the gulf between Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick's visions of The Shining, Mike Flanagan's 3-hour cut of Doctor Sleep is a tour-de-force: ambitious, disturbing and, when it finally goes where you hoped it would, oddly pleasurable. An adaptation like no other.

"We're all just looking out for something real." Drawing as much on Stanley Kubrick as Ridley Scott, this is a rare sequel that equals and even surpasses the original - director Denis Villeneuve crafting Hampton Fancher and Michael Green's script into a cerebral, ethereal and truly monumental work.

"Nothing can atone for a wasted life." Mannered, melodramatic but intensely immersive, Alfonso Cuarón's adaptation of Renée Knight's novel is driven by mesmeric turns from Blanchett, Kline and - almost unrecognisable in a serious drama - Sacha Baron Cohen. A real kettle of fish.

"When the skies are grey, hope finds a way." Paddingtons 1 & 2 were full of energy, tightly controlled. With a different director at the helm, and a bevy of writers on board - plus a new Mrs Brown - this charts a more wayward course, but remains a joyously entertaining journey.

"I'm vengeance." Each version of Batman is darker than the last; this, from writer/director Matt Reeves and co-writer Peter Craig, is like The Godfather meets Se7en: an epic, Gothic crime saga, sumptuously designed and photographed, and richly scored by Michael Giacchino. Riveting.

I wrote about my 3 favourite reads from the past year for Shepherd Books: Cimino by Charles Elton (discovered via @drjonty.bsky.social's Writers On Film podcast); Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions by Ed Zwick; and Word Monkey by Christopher Fowler... shepherd.com/bboy/2024/f/...

🎂 Happy Birthday to my Q&A book with William Boyd, #TheMirrorAndTheRoad, a whole 1 year old today - and still on display, for its proud author to take photos of, in the Biography and/or Essays and/or Literary Criticism sections of discerning bookshops! 🍾 bit.ly/mirror-road

"There is no worse death than the end of hope." Arthur as a Roman cavalry leader, Guinevere as a proto-Boudicca, Merlin as a warrior Pict; this improbable marriage of Excalibur, Gladiator and Braveheart is as absurd as it is ambitious - but you have to admire its sheer chutzpah.

"The dumber I behave, the richer I get." Satire is hard to do well, but writer/director Cord Jefferson - adapting Percival Everett's novel Erasure - makes it look easy, balancing cultural barbs and family drama with poise and precision. And Jeffrey Wright is, as always, superb.

"Sometimes God happens fast." Screenplays don't get much better than this, and as director Aaron Sorkin does his damndest to match his script. Chastain is sensational, Elba relishes his speeches, and a late scene with Costner is as good as anything in any film. A modern classic.

"Maybe that's all we were - just a great week." Winningly directed by Crystal, and wittily scripted by him, Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel, this isn't quite in the When Harry Met Sally class but it's close, with a clever flashback structure and fizzy chemistry between the leads.

"A man learns nothing from winning." A ravishing Ridley Scott love letter to France, featuring a twinkling cameo by Albert Finney... but enough about The Duellists. This, scripted by Marc Klein from Peter Mayle's book, is house red by comparison, but improves the more you drink.

"Growing up, aren't you?" Adapted by David Cook from his book, helmed by ace cinematographer Chris Menges, and starring William Hurt as, of all things, a Welsh postmaster, this is a definite curio - but also a great credit to all concerned: complex, compassionate and compelling.

"I hate losing. I hate it." Shakespearean in its scope, especially in its 3½ hour director's cut, Oliver Stone's 1995 biopic is among his most fascinating films: bombastic, impressionistic, at times almost Gothic, powered by a towering performance from Anthony Hopkins. Riveting.

My favourite Maggie Smith performance was Charlotte Bartlett in A Room with a View, but she was also great as a passionate aristocrat with a secret past in The Missionary. Michael Caine apparently warned writer/star Michael Palin that she would steal the film, and he was right...

"It's not the plane, it's the pilot." And this has some ace pilots: director Joseph Kosinski lovingly homages the high-gloss Tony Scott look; a trio of writers provide a masterclass in Hollywood screencraft; and Cruise does what Cruise does. Ridiculously cheesy, in the best way.

"Things can grow here." Though rooted in British social realist drama, JamesGraham's epic, brooding saga is also reminiscent of US crime movies from Chinatown to Mystic River. David Morrissey stands out from a superb cast, and series 3 is surely inevitable - and essential.

"Never give up! Never surrender!" A high-concept comedy, a sci-fi adventure, an affectionate send-up of Star Trek - Galaxy Quest is several movies in one, all great. David Howard and Robert Gordon's script shifts effortlessly through tonal gears, and the cast has a ball. Joyful.

One of the late great James Earl Jones's lesser known roles was in this tense 1990 HBO thriller, where he helps save mankind from nuclear armageddon. "Do better next time, sir," he tells the leader of the free world; and faced with a presence like his, what president would argue?

"We read to know we're not alone." Adapted from TV to the stage, then back into a film, William Nicholson's wry, tender true story found its perfect director in Richard Attenborough, a master of heartfelt understatement. British cinema at its best, and a high point for its cast.

"The truth has power in it." Paul McGuigan's eclectically-cast medieval parable, scripted by Mark Mills, works best when it embraces the nuances of Barry Unsworth's novel Morality Play, less well the further it strays into movie conventions. Acts 1 & 2, though, are spellbinding.

Comparisons to le Carré are very rarely justified, either in style or substance. This time, they are - although the more obvious forerunner to Mick Herron's laconic, world-weary characters and complex but lightly-worn plotting would be Len Deighton. I feel a book binge coming on.

🎂 Happy 4th birthday to my 4th book, #TheArtOfScreenAdaptation - interviews with 12 writers including David Nicholls & Sarah Phelps. 'Formidable' says Roger Michell, 'Fascinating' says the Observer, 'Essential' says Stephen Volk, writer of Ghostwatch - and I'll drink to that! 🥂 bit.ly/art-adaptation

"She had a core of inscrutability about her." Imagine the love child of Dario Argento, John Carpenter and Mike Leigh, and you're still nowhere near the delirious strangeness of Peter Strickland's horror compendium slash consumer satire: a collage of homages, yet entirely unique.

"No man can outrun God." Guillermo del Toro's film of William Lindsay Gresham's novel, co-scripted by Kim Morgan, is a troubling tale of sin and penance, akin to Shutter Island in its baroque grandeur and brooding menace. Dark, stylish and destined to stick in the mind. @realgdt.bsky.social

"It's our deadly passion..." No one does movies about driven men better than Michael Mann, and this is his best for ages: precisely directed, powerfully acted - particularly by Penélope Cruz - and scripted with economy and élan by the late great Troy Kennedy Martin. Enthralling.