How to find great films to watch
Bored with Hollywood and Netflix? Becoming an adventurous and informed explorer of the cinema world is in everyone’s grasp
by Geoff Andrew
Film
A touch of absurdity can help to wrap your mind around reality
And now for something completely different: how a dose of the surreal or absurd helps to make sense of our place in the world
by David Robson
Dietrich showed how adopting a persona can reveal one’s true self
Kaloprosopia – the art of crafting a persona, as Marlene Dietrich and David Bowie did – can help us access a truer self
by Sam Mills
What films and literature reveal about the voice in your head
Inner speech is mysterious and hard to study. But movie voiceovers and introspective novels offer fresh ways to understand it
by Shayla Love
In the cinema, my father’s unspeakable childhood finally surfaced
Not too distant and not to close: how rituals help us process trauma, and why watching Anna Karenina helped heal my father
by Christiana Spens
Hollywood’s fixation on the wrong stories won’t help our world
Today’s global problems are caused by broken systems, but the studios still feed us a diet of movies focused on individuals
by Namir Khaliq
What is it about film and TV antiheroes that’s so captivating?
They’re entertaining, of course – but research highlights a deeper psychological reason viewers are drawn to the bad guys
by Ana Gantman & Jordan Wylie
What the journey from Star Trek to Siri says about our culture
The talking computer in Star Trek takes the culture and technology of the present and dreams up future possibilities
by Liz W Faber
Meet the artists who create sounds for movies – and have so much fun doing it
A film by Jeremy Benning
Immersion in fictional worlds allows us to own our dark side
Our liking for fictional villains such as Voldemort tells us something about the dark side of our own personalities
by Rebecca Krause-Galoni
Fiction has a special power to give us insight into our flaws
Losing yourself in a book, film or show provides a useful mirror for character – one that is hard to access in real life
by Martina Orlandi
Why was a laughing woman seen as lethal, not least to herself?
When early cinema weaponised the sight of women’s laughter, it borrowed from flawed psychiatric ideas about female hysteria
by Maggie Hennefeld
An artist’s serene moving paintings probe the surface of reality itself
Films by Susi Sie
The therapeutic power in learning to make a film together
A collaboration among workers in India showed the power of making and discussing films for sharing life’s inner challenges
by Varun Kurtkoti
No flock of sheep nor arranged marriage will temper Asho’s Hollywood dreams
Directed by Jafar Najafi
An audiovisual odyssey into the heavens of astronomy and myth
A film by Bill Morrison