The insider's guide to the Proms 2025

The Proms 2025 are nearly upon; the First Night is July 18. You may wish to visit the Royal Albert Hall and sample the delights of this great concert series in the flesh – if so, read on for my essential tips on how to book and where to find the best deals. Or it may suit you better simply to watch them on TV, or listen on the radio: many of the best Proms are televised, and every single one can be heard both on Radio 3 and BBC Sounds (once the concerts are underway, I'll be updating this guide with reviews and links to the best recordings).
However you plan to enjoy them, here is everything you need to know to navigate the Proms like a pro – and my pick of this year's highlights. I have been going to the Proms almost every year since 1975, and as the Telegraph's Classical Music critic have reviewed over 600 concerts. The Proms has to be the greatest classical music festival on Earth, as welcoming to the nervous classical novice as it is to the cognoscenti. And if you do want to go along, and don't mind standing, the Proms are also astonishingly cheap.
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The overview
The Proms mark the highpoint of the international classical music calendar. Starting on July 18 and finishing on September 13, 85 concerts straddle the summer, with the famed Last Night taking place just after the schools have gone back. The Proms were founded in 1895, and have been run by the BBC since 1927, after the organisers ran into their umpteenth financial crisis. The BBC's five orchestras are the workhorses of the series, playing in 29 concerts this year, but the programme offers hundreds of other performances in dozens of styles – from medieval plainchant and romantic symphonies to blockbuster film-scores and African high-life – by musicians from all over the world.
The festival's eclecticism and generosity of spirit is what makes the Proms so loveable, yet that same quality is used in evidence by those who argue that the Proms are losing their identity or, even worse, 'dumbing down'. I don't buy that. Back in the 1890s when the Proms began, patrons could sway along to a 'Scotch Ballad Night' or cheer at a jolly cornet solo from 'the celebrated Mr Howard Reynolds'.
True, the tone and the brow soon rose in the years that followed. The entrepreneur who co-founded the Proms, Robert Newman, was determined to 'run nightly concerts and train the public by easy stages… Popular at first, gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music.'
As we all know, he succeeded. If you attended the Proms on a regular basis, you'd get a pretty good education in the 'canon' of masterworks, and in between them would be those daring new pieces by Debussy and Schoenberg that at first irritated everyone, before we all got used to them. But the existence of some evenings to suit a wider range of tastes has always persisted, too.
Personally I'm thrilled that the CBeebies Proms and film music nights – and yes, a Traitors' Prom, the big talking point of 2025 – can coexist alongside the more regular classical programming that still dominates. It's the variousness of the Proms, its refusal to be neat and tidy like, say, the toffee-nosed Salzburg Festival, which guarantees its amazing power of self-renewal.
How to book
If you fancy the full live experience there are three types of tickets you can get: an individual Prom ticket, a season ticket, or a weekend pass. If you go for an individual Prom you can simply book a seat, with prices ranging from £10 up in the gods to £160 for a Grand Tier Box seat (the velvet-coat Albert Hall boxes provide a pretty luxurious experience), or you can choose to stand.
The technical term for standing at the Proms is Promming, and a single ticket for any concert costs a mere £8. The season and weekend ticket options are only for Prommers and also represent astonishingly good value. Prices range from £19.50 to £26 for a weekend ticket and it's only £272 to access the entire season of over 80 concerts. (Although, be aware a smattering of the events are not included in the season ticket – check the Proms website for details – but the season ticket will let you into the Last Night).
Whatever type of ticket you choose, you should book online; it's quick and easy at royalalberthall.com. But, if you prefer, you can call on 020 7070 4441, or even visit the box office in person, at Door 12 of the Royal Albert Hall.
You need to know that booking a ticket for the Last Night is a major mission because demand is so high: for that, you have to enter an online ballot. Please see our Last Night section for details.
Where to watch and listen
Radio 3 and BBC Sounds host audio of every single Prom. A wide selection is filmed for BBC One, BBC Two and the iPlayer.
Dos and don'ts if you go to a concert
Do
Dress up if you want
Nobody will bat an eyelid, because you'll find every kind of sartorial weirdness at the Proms. Every year there's a Prommer who goes sporting skin-tight cycling Lycra. There are often a few Union Jack waistcoats, especially on the Last Night. But ultimately, it's very easy to blend into the background.
Give money
Volunteers in the hall collect for Help Musicians (formerly Musicians Benevolent Fund) at the end of each concert. It's a charity which helps musicians to develop their careers, or who've fallen on hard times, or who have physical or mental problems. They really need it – though donating online is more efficient because you can boost your donation with Gift Aid.
Take a picnic
Sit out in Kensington Gardens, just across the road from the Royal Albert Hall beforehand, or in the interval, and enjoy the evening sun. You'll avoid the crush in the RAH bars, and the snacks are hopeless anyway.
Bring a flag, from any nation, if you feel like it
There's no etiquette, and a few sprinkle the season before they arrive in droves for the Last Night.
Don't
Arrive at the last minute
It always takes longer than you'd think to navigate those very confusing, identical-looking circular corridors of the Royal Albert Hall and find your seat.
Bother with the bars
The RAH's venues are not only overcrowded but pricey, try the Imperial College Bar, down the steps from the south side of the hall and to the right instead.
Clap between movements
There are two schools of thought about this.
One is: people always clapped between movements in the 19 th century, it was only tyrannical conductors like Toscanini who set the current trend for reverent silence. So be spontaneous and applaud if you want to. Performers always appreciate it.
The other is: reverent silence is good, it holds the mood, and if you clap you'll feel silly because you'll be (almost) the only one. So keeping schtum is the safer option. I would go for that, unless you just can't repress your enthusiasm until the end.
Insider tips
Best place to sit for sound
Let's be frank – the acoustics in the Royal Albert Hall are not great. Sir Thomas Beecham, famed conductor of many Proms, once said: 'The Albert Hall is the best place for a young composer to be premiered, because he can be sure of hearing his piece twice.' He was referring to the echo in that vast space, which can be really weird when sitting on either side of the hall, especially in percussive modern music. Even odder is the way the sound changes when you move just a few yards.
There's a sweet spot in the stalls in block H, and generally the middle blocks opposite the stage are good. At the front of the arena the sound is naturally vivid and 'up-front', upstairs in the balcony and gallery it's more, shall we say, impressionistic. If you're a stickler for good acoustics, listen on BBC Radio 3, where the sound is always better. But you'll miss something special.
Eyries and cosy nooks
The Albert Hall is so big it has its own microclimates and odd little corners, with their own special charm. Take for instance the standing galleries, which are high up and so tend to get pretty warm. Why would any Prommer want to go up there where you need a telescope to see the stage? The reason is that the lofty altitude and fuzzy sound combine to create a real sense of romantic sublimity. And yet it's oddly cosy and secretive. You could organise a Knitting Circle or a class in conversational Serbian and no-one in the Stalls would ever know.
Down below things are a bit cooler. If you sit in the East or West Choir on either side of the organ you'll get a grandstand view of the orchestra and conductor, and if you're near the front you'll see the beads of perspiration on the conductor's brow as well. Because you'll be right behind the brass and percussion they will be correspondingly loud, and the strings somewhat inaudible. And if the organ is involved that will drown everything.
In terms of sight-lines, to be in the Stalls or Circle right up by the stage on the left gives an enjoyable 'insider's view'. You can see soloists and conductors waiting in the wings before anyone else, and thrill to the sight of the pianist's leaping hands, oboists nervously moistening their reeds and horn players emptying their instruments of spittle.
As for the worst seats in the Albert Hall everyone has their own view, but I always try to avoid the two spots exactly half-way round the hall on either side. These are the places where the venue's notorious echo is at its most disconcerting. But wherever you sit you'll be able to savour one of the hall's main attractions, which is the sense of democracy that comes from being a circular space. There's always a sea of eager faces looking back at you.
Best loos
The basement loos where the Prommers go are always the least crowded.
Ivan Hewett's picks of what to see in 2025
The great soloists
Opera
The blockbusters
For intrepid musical explorers
Everyone's favourites
Proms to make your heart soar
The world's greatest orchestras
The BBC's orchestras play in a quarter of the Proms and are wonderful, but the series also offers a golden opportunity to hear other great orchestras from around the world. Each one brings its own sound, its own style, and its own repertoire. Here's my pick of their concerts in 2025:
Orchestre National de France
You'd hope a French orchestra would offer a dollop of ravishing Gallic sensuousness, and that's exactly what the ONF does. Ravel's Rapsodie espagnole and La valse top and tail a programme that contains a couple of wild cards.
July 23
Budapest Festival Orchestra
Founded back in the Communist era by conductor Iván Fischer, together with a bunch of musicians bored with the routine of playing for official orchestras, the Budapest Festival Orchestra brings a rich Central European sound to Beethoven and Bartók.
August 6
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Some say it's the finest orchestra in the world, and now with hot-shot Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä at the helm it has a new spring in its step.
August 23, 24; broadcast on BBC Four on August 24
Norwegian Chamber Orchestra
The distant past is evoked in this Prom, in which Swedish singer Katarina Barruk sings songs in an almost-extinct language of Lapland, interspersed with orchestral music from Bach and Shostakovich to Arvo Pärt and Hannah Kendall.
31 August
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
There are few things in life more satisfying than hearing the Vienna Philharmonic bring its special, soft-edged sound to Viennese music. And – in their second concert – to Tchaikovsky's Symphonie Pathétique.
September 8, 9; broadcast on BBC Four on September 9
The great soloists
If it's electrifying individual musicians that light your fire, rather than this or that symphony, the Proms offer a feast. There are almost 200 outstanding conductors, pianists, violinists, singers, pop guitarists, players of the Indian sitar and more listed in the guide, performing mostly with one of the 43 orchestras.
The Proms don't just go for senior figures, such as conductor Simon Rattle and pianist András Schiff (both in this year's season); they also give a platform to up-and-coming musicians. Here's a selection:
Yunchan Lim
This 21-year-old South Korean pianist is a true poet of the piano, almost painfully modest, who says of Rachmaninov's rarely-played 4 th Piano Concerto – which he's playing in this Prom with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – that it contains the composer's 'great noble soul'.
August 1
Benjamin Grosvenor
This quietly intense 32-year-old British pianist lacks the gift of the gab that helps catapult some young artists into a glittery career. But it hasn't held him back. I'd take a bet that his performance of the immortal melody in the slow movement of Ravel's Piano Concerto will be a season highlight.
August 15
Hilary Hahn
The great American violinist joins one of Europe's finest orchestras, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, for Dvořák's lovely, folk-tinged, but difficult-to-bring-off violin concerto.
August 26
Hugh Cutting
The young countertenor (ie male alto) Hugh Cutting has a creamy, powerful and yet otherworldly sound which will bring a special lustre to the Irish Baroque Orchestra's performance of Handel's Alexander's Feast.
August 30
Golda Schultz
The fabulous South African soprano wowed everyone at the Last Night in 2020, and her big generous tone will surely bring a shine to songs by George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Kurt Weill in this Prom with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.
September 6
Opera
The Proms' ambition to bring the whole of classical music to everybody doesn't stop with symphonies and concertos. It also stretches to opera, which works better in the Royal Albert Hall than the idiosyncratic acoustics might lead you to believe.
The big space magnifies the outsize passions of the characters, and those lofty galleries and choir stalls mean a stunning dramatic entrance by a character can be contrived – by a clever director.
Suor Angelica
The tragic tale of the nun who yearns to be reunited with her child brought forth an opera of almost unbearable intensity from Giacomo Puccini. This performance from the London Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Antonio Pappano, has a terrific cast including Carolina López Moreno as Sister Angelica.
August 19
The Marriage of Figaro
Mozart's eternally fresh comedy comes direct to the Proms from the Glyndebourne Festival, with the wonderful Louise Alder as the Countess who eventually tames her errant Count.
August 27
Lady Macbeth of Mtensk
Shostakovich's grim tragedy of a bored provincial wife driven first to infidelity and then to murder will be sung in English, in this English National Opera production.
September 1
The blockbusters
Nowhere beats the Royal Albert Hall as a space to encounter the big beasts of classical music. It's not just that the sound takes on the proper grandeur as it reverberates round that enormous space. It's the fact that you see the audience looking back at you. You're joined with them in the experience of something immense.
Bruckner's Seventh Symphony
People say the huge sculpted masses of Bruckner's symphonies are cathedrals in sound, and in the Albert Hall they can certainly seem that way. But it also has a Viennese lilt. In this Prom from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, it's paired with the 20 th piano concerto by another great Viennese composer, Mozart, which makes perfect sense.
July 27
Mahler's 'Resurrection' Symphony
Mahler's 80-minute Symphony No. 2 in C minor, played in this Prom by Manchester's Hallé Orchestra, is giant-sized in a different way. No lofty cathedrals here. It's black despair in the opening funeral march, nostalgia in the second, grim satire in the 3 rd movement. Then comes a rapt song and heaven-storming finale. You might want a stiff drink beforehand.
August 2
Mahler's Third Symphony
This Prom, from the joint forces of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Orchestre National de Bretagne, offers a Mahler symphony even vaster, but lighter: Symphony No. 3 in D minor. It contains a funeral march, an evocation of a worker's parade, a sweet minuet, a jolly dance evoking the forest, a mystical song with words by Nietzsche, an innocent chorus for children, and a rapt hymn for strings to end with.
August 11
Delius's A Mass of Life
This Prom from BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Mark Elder, is filled with a real rarity from Frederick Delius, the English composer who fled the industrial North of England to Florida and later France. As the title suggests this isn't a Christian mass, it's a hymn to the life-force in nature, which seems to be drunk on its own gorgeousness.
August 18
For intrepid musical explorers
Proms co-founder Robert Newman's imperious declaration that he was going to create 'a public for classical and modern music' wouldn't go down well now. Too elitist. But, on the quiet, Proms directors still hope their audiences can be tempted to boldly go where they've never gone before. Here's a sample of some of the 'novelties' on offer this season:
Boulez and Berio: 20th-Century Giants
Modern music can actually be fun, as Italian composer Luciano Berio proved with his Sequenza V for trombone and Recital 1 (for Cathy). Both are performed in this late-night Prom from the Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain, alongside the shadowy Dialogue de l'ombre double by another composer born a century ago, Pierre Boulez.
July 23
The Hammer without a Master
Boulez's music returns in this Prom from the Glasshouse International Centre for Music in Gateshead. Virtuoso Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe leads a performance of his piece that 70 years ago fixed the glittery, 'oriental' sound of modern music, Le Marteau sans maître (The Hammer without a Master).
July 27
Earth Dances
Some pieces will always sound contemporary, and this Prom from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra contains two of them. One is the immense, overwhelmingly powerful Earth Dances by the late Harrison Birtwistle. The other is Beethoven's 3 rd Symphony.
July 28
Thorvaldsdottir Cello Concerto
It's always a thrill to hear something brand new, and this Prom from the BBC Symphony Orchestra has the world premiere of an Icelandic cello concerto, alongside two boundary-breaking pieces from more than a century ago, Intégrales by Varèse and Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.
August 13
Thomas Adès, Five Spells
Once again the BBC Symphony Orchestra leads the way, with famed British composer Thomas Adès conducting the Five Spells from his own 2004 opera The Tempest, and a brand new organ concerto from American composer Gabriella Smith.
September 2
Everyone's favourites
The Proms are so stuffed with unfamiliar pieces by composers with unpronounceable names that novice listeners could just give up, thinking 'this festival isn't for me.' They shouldn't be afraid. The Proms have never been snobbish about the pieces everyone loves. Here are a few of them:
Vivaldi's Four Seasons
The excellent French specialist Baroque orchestra Le Consort plays Summer from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, alongside a bunch of wonderful Baroque concertos by Vivaldi and Bach.
July 20; broadcast on BBC Four
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony
Hear the most famous symphony of them all played by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, alongside a gorgeous Egyptian-style piano concerto, an elegant French ballet and a new piece inspired by a dead composer's skeleton (Bruckner's Skull by Jay Capperauld).
July 25; broadcast on BBC 2
Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto
Do you want to be made to cry by Rachmaninov's best-loved concerto? You won't be the only one with a hanky at the ready at this performance by the Ukrainian virtuoso Vadym Kholodenko, accompanied by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
July 30
Dvořák's 'New World' Symphony
If this is your favourite symphony, head to this Prom by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra where the Czech composer's vision of American music is set beside the real thing, by African-American composer Adolphus Hailstork, Jennifer Higdon and Arturo Márquez.
August 7; broadcast on BBC 4
Grieg's Piano Concerto
The final week of the Proms brings Grieg's Piano Concerto, folky-rumbustious and Lisztian-heroic by turns, played by 24-year-old Lukas Sternath and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, alongside interesting rarities by Ruth Gipps and the one-time Master of the King's Music Sir Arthur Bliss.
September 7
Proms to make your heart soar
A tricky category, because the heart is so unpredictable. What makes one person's heart soar will make another's feel pained, and leave a third unmoved. But these should do the trick:
Viennese Whirl
A good-time evening from the BBC Concert Orchestra is packed full of waltzes by Johann Strauss I and II and others, including some less familiar names such as Nico Dostal. But it also has Johan Strauss's 'Burning Love', a soul-stirring polka mazurka.
August 2 broadcast on BBC Two
Great British Classics
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales perform Vaughan Williams' Lark Ascending, a heart-soaring piece if there ever was one, and a clutch of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's exquisitely crafted pieces including Isle of Beauty which are touching in their own special way.
August 5
Rachmaninov's 'Paganini' Variations
Nestling between Paul Dukas's luscious La Peri and Bartók's savage The Miraculous Mandarin in this performance from the BBC Symphony Orchestra is Rachmaninov's Paganini Variations. If that doesn't make your heart melt when the big tune comes round you'd better see your doctor.
August 8
Le Concert Spirituel
A feast of sumptuous Italian sacred music from the 16th and 17th centuries. When those sounds vault up the Albert Hall's huge dome, the heart will surely soar up with them.
August 17
And finally… that special Proms experience
Eccentric, populist, but with an underlying seriousness – it's the quintessential British combination, which is why the Proms could only exist here. The following events look set to embody the Proms spirit with particular vividness:
The Traitors Prom
The battle between the Traitors and the Faithful in the BBC's hugely popular reality TV show will be musically evoked in this Prom, with the well-known theme tune rubbing shoulders with classical and operatic music with treachery at its heart.
July 26
100 Years of the Shipping Forecast
The Ulster Hall in Belfast is the venue for this celebration of the BBC Radio's Shipping Forecast, with music inspired by the sea and the elements and a new work from Poet Laureate Simon Armitage.
August 8
From Dark Till Dawn
Proms history was made in 1981 with an all-night concert of Indian classical music. This season there'll be another all-nighter, from a clutch of performers including the Norwegian Barokksolistene, organist Anna Lapwood and the Pembroke College Choir, and Japanese pianist Hayato Sumino.
August 8
András Schiff plays Bach
The great Hungarian pianist András Schiff will be playing Bach's crystalline, otherworldly Art of Fugue complete in the Royal Albert Hall. It's the quintessential private piece, and to hear it in that huge space will be both strange and wonderful.
August 23
Shostakovich's Fifth by Heart
The Aurora Orchestra will perform from memory Shostakovich's symphonic response to damning criticism from the Soviet regime. A sincere apology, or actually a covert condemnation of Stalin? The pre-performance guide to the symphony's genesis from conductor Nicholas Collon and a bunch of actors will help you decide.
August 16; broadcast on BBC Four
Paraorchestra and The Breath
Following on from their triumphant Proms debut last year this inspiring orchestra made up of severely disabled musicians returns for a concert at Bristol Beacon, this time in the company of folk/ambient duo The Breath.
August 22
The Last Night
As all the world knows the Last Night Prom is something special, utterly different to the rest of the season. There is a relatively serious first half, which might even include a 'difficult' new piece. Then, in the second half, the silliness that was barely repressed in the first bursts out in a joyous mélange of sing-along and nostalgia-fest, accompanied by cheers and stamping feet and an orgy of flag-waving patriotism of every kind, not just British.
It's a mix that on the face of it seems completely unworkable, and many Proms directors have tried to reform the Last Night to make it more fit for serious musical company. John Drummond, director from 1986 to 1985 probably hoped he could kill it forever by commissioning hard-line modernist composer Harrison Birtwistle to compose a saxophone concerto for the 1995 Last Night. The resulting piece, Panic, was ear-shreddingly dissonant, and prompted a flood of angry phone calls to the BBC.
But in the 30 years since the scandal has been embraced in the ample bosom of the Proms' collective memory. It now seems just another example of endearing (or maddening) Last Night eccentricity, no more scary than the party poppers that scatter confetti over everyone's heads. The same is true of recent attempts to have Rule Britannia and Jerusalem removed from the uproarious singalong, on the grounds that they are inappropriate in our post-colonial age. They prompted much angry debate for and against the idea – but in the end everything just carried on as before.
This imperviousness to change and tone-deafness to current ideological fashion is what makes the Last Night intolerable for many. For others, it's precisely what makes the Last Night cherishable.
So once again this year the Last Night – which falls on September 13 and will be overseen by young Hong Kong-born conductor Elim Chan – will indeed include both Rule Britannia and Jerusalem, along with with solo performances by soprano Louise Alder and trumpeter Alison Balsom and world premieres by Camille Pépin and Rachel Portman.
How to book for the Last Night
It's a challenge, as almost all the seats have already been sold. But you can give yourself a sporting chance by one of the following methods.
Enter the Open Ballot for one of 200 Stalls and Circle seats, by completing the official ballot form. It closes on July 10.
Apply for any remaining seated tickets from 9.00am on July 18, by phone or online only.
Buy a Season Promming Pass, which includes a standing ticket to the Last Night.
Some standing tickets remain available for Prommers who have attended five or more concerts, in person only at the box office.
The remaining standing tickets will be available on the day itself, online.

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It can't be — can it — after all this time? Nostalgic pop-culture references to the old Tango adverts and the Teletubbies. Fancy freeze-frames and lickety-split editing. A banging mixtape of ambient house on the soundtrack so that even when the characters are battling for their life against zombies the audience feel like they are tying one on at the Haçienda on a Saturday night with their mates. It has to be … yes, it's a Danny Boyle film. Last seen directing Yesterday in 2019, Boyle returns to screens this week with 28 Years Later, an unusually thoughtful sequel to his 2002 classic 28 Days Later, which shows much has changed since the zombie apocalypse — sorry, Rage Virus — was first loosed on the world. England is now cut off from the rest of Europe and a small group of the uninfected are holed up on an island. It's a community that defends itself with homemade bows and arrows and has returned to the values of the 1950s including waving St George's flags. Boyle splices their defence of the fortified causeway that leads to the mainland with snatches of footage from the Battle of Agincourt in Laurence Olivier's 1944 film Henry V. We seem to be in one of those remote Hebridean communities beloved of old folk-horror films where villagers worship pagan gods, copulate in the fields and cure sore throats with toads. If George A Romero's zombie movies in the Seventies set themselves up as allegories of mass-market consumerism, Boyle's seem to be about the Little Englander belligerence that fuelled Brexit. These zombies don't want to eat our brains, just our unbendy cucumbers. • Danny Boyle: Road rage, Brexit — and why I'm returning to 28 Days Later Tutoring his son, Spike (Alfie Williams), in the ways of the postapocalyptic patriarchy is Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), whose sick wife, Isla (Jodie Comer), languishes in the bedroom upstairs. He takes his son on his first trip to the mainland to hunt for zombies, a blood sport-cum-rite of passage for the island's young men. 'The more you kill the easier it gets,' Jamie tells him, but there's a new breed of 'alpha zombie': big, naked brutes who run like the clappers, willies bouncing, who seem to represent all the coarse male energies at large in this postapocalyptic world. The screenwriter Alex Garland has bigger issues in his sights than just zombies. After Spike cottons on to his father's lies and escapes to the mainland with his mother in the hope of finding a cure for what ails her, the film downshifts into an odyssey that owes as much to Garland's Civil War last year as to the original 2002 Boyle film. The mother and son's journey is punctuated by images of societal breakdown — an abandoned Happy Eater roadside café, a rusting train carriage, a compound of human bones ruled by a bald, blood-and-mud-encrusted doctor (Ralph Fiennes) who raves about the 'magic of the placenta' in the crackpot fashion of Colonel Kurtz. • The best films of 2025 so far Garland's copy of Heart of Darkness must be well thumbed. Joseph Conrad's novella provided much of the thematic superstructure of The Beach as well. Do the slim fillets of action justify the weightier themes that are hung on them? He and Boyle are trying to make a wider statement about societal collapse — it's like a zombie movie made by Ken Loach. But what will gamers make of the gentle, ruminative climax? My guess is a slight but unshakeable feeling of bamboozlement. Boyle adds a bloody coda of zombie slaughter, freeze-framing on every arterial spray and brain splatter, just to be on the safe side. ★★★☆☆15, 115min Disney Pixar hits most of its marks, but not all. Elio is about an orphaned 11-year-old, Elio Solis (Yonas Kibreab), now in the care of his aunt (Zoe Saldaña), who channels his loneliness and longing into the sky. Sending messages using a ham radio and a colander for aliens to come and beam him up, he is one day granted that wish by a benevolent collective of alien races known as the Communiverse, who are facing down a threat from a warlord called Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), who looks like a crab crossed with a Swiss army knife with plasma cannon for limbs. Anyone recalling the showdowns between Donald Trump and the United Nations would not be far off. • Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews The film gives kids a framework to understand the world's strong men — beneath his military-grade exoskeleton, Lord Grigon turns out to be a soft, caterpillar-like sweetheart — but suffers from the Pixar blight of too many bright ideas, an excess of benevolence and a story that doesn't know which lane to pick. We're almost 50 minutes into the film before we meet Grigon's pudgy, pacifist son, Glordon, whose friendship with Elio should have been the emotional core of the film. But they have to wait their turn in a plot set on heartwarming reconciliations for everyone — Elio and his aunt, Glordon and his dad, Grigon and the Communiverse. These things were so much simpler in ET's day. In this film, everyone has a heart light. ★★★☆☆PG, 99min Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. 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