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Five stars for The Dark Knight

Heath Ledger’s Oscar looks in the bag, this new instalment rewrites the comic-book thriller genre, says James Christopher

Batman star asks for privacy after arrest

Christian Bale said in Barcelona that the assault complaints by his mother and sister were 'a deeply personal matter'

The end of the G-A-Y

The nightclub that welcomed Kylie, Cyndi and Madonna and provided a venue for countless gay romances, is shutting up shop. Tim Teeman sheds a tear

Walking between the twin towers

The new film Man on Wire marks Philippe Petit’s finest hour - his 1974 walk between the twin towers. Kevin Maher met him

Listen to the Proms Podcast. Times Editor James Harding introduces our first show, running every week until the Last Night of the Proms

Film 

Gillian Anderson's X Files encore

The 39-year-old actress always meant to play Dana Scully again - but until now life got in the way, she tells Will Lawrence

Matt Damon as the trained assassin Jason Bourne in The Bourne Ultimatum

British blockbusters take on the world

The UK Film Council says we are benefitting from an increasingly generous definition of what makes a 'British' movie

Batman star Bale arrested in London

Actor questioned for four hours and released on bail on suspicion of assaulting his mother and sister at the Dorchester Hotel

Heath tributes at Dark Knight opening

Black carpet rolled out and talk of a posthumous Oscar at the unveiling of Heath Ledger film The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight

Dark Knight movie logo

10 things that make Dark Knight the best Batman ever

Your verdicts    

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Melissa, USA
Alice Cooper

Times Recommends

Alice Cooper: who's behind the make-up?

The born-again Christian and father of shock rock is back

Music 

Foals

Foals injured in Sex Pistols-Bloc Party fight

New details of the weekend's bust-up between the Kele Okereke and John Lydon emerge as Foals injuries revealed

Thom Yorke of Radiohead

Radiohead on Mercury shortlist for web album

Radiohead competes with The Last Shadow Puppets, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss and Estelle for the prestigious prize

Whispering Melody

From a near-fatal accident to her discovery of jazz, Melody Gardot’s story is well wor th listening to — and so are her songs

Confessions of a beach boy

With his indie band Hefner on the rocks, songwriter Darren Hayman needed inspiration, and found it, by the sea

Exclusive download

Fat Freddy's Drop

New music from Fat Freddy's Drop

The End II: Grease or Psycho? Last week's best endings article had a huge response, now our critics choose the 20 worst movie endings ever: with clips

TV & Radio 

The gobby, stroppy stars of Cab Driver

They have the knowledge and don’t they let you know it. Cab Driver looks at London’s expensive and someitmes exasperating black cabbies

great british feasts

Marco Pierre White's Mr Ishii

For 14 years the celebrity chef has relied on his chauffeur. Now Takanori Ishii is a TV star in his own right

Irvine Welsh helps Radio 4 to loosen up

The author of Trainspotting, famed for his ripe use of language, has prompted a new liberal policy towards swearing at Radio 4

John Barrowman's 'sexual lie detector' test goes off the scale

After taking a "sexual lie detector" test for The Making of Me, John Barrowman exclaimed that the results were "totally off the scale"

Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins

The evangelical atheist on Darwin

Visual arts 

My flag is better than yours by Geoff Diego Litherland

Chapmans to judge painting prize

The enfants terribles of British art (who once defaced Goya) are now judging the UK’s most important award for painting

Bringing together art with heart

The National Gallery has tried to condense the many splendours of love into one show. Has it succeeded?

Banned nude still scandalises

An oil painting of a nude woman went back on show more than 60 years after it was banned for being "too brazen"

Why I dread a childless, sexless future

Every gallery wants her work and she's invited to all the best parties. So why does no man want to give Tracey Emin babies?

Wellcome Collection

Skeleton at the Wellcome Collection

Gallery displays 26 skeletons from London graveyards

Times Literary Supplement 

Models of Adam and Eve in the Creation Museum, Kentucky

The creation of Creationism

Today's brand of Protestant extremism should worry theologians as well as scientists

A still from the film Standard Operating Procedures

States of terror, states of consent

Philip Bobbitt's strategic transnational politics for the twenty-first century

Edward Said on music

The late music critic of The Nation was high-minded in his tastes, but popular in his appeal

Amis & Amis

The family firm produced disparate results – but is either writer any good?

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TV & Radio  

AA Gill

open quote mark Everyone who wanted to cut the labias out of women and extinguish Jews came from places that were poor close quote mark

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AA Gill
John Barrowman scores a big 10 on the Gay-O-Meter. We have seen a picture of him, aged 10, wearing a bikini in a beauty pageant
Caitlin Moran

Stage 

Louis CK: the comedian that Ricky Gervais calls the funniest in America

With that endorsement, it can't be long before he hits the big time. What makes him tick?

Alan Ayckbourn: my love-hate thing

He has been writing plays for more than 50 years, but the eminent British playwright still distrusts most theatre

An acrobatic Swan Lake

Chinese acrobats, the Guangdong Military Acrobatic Troupe, are staging a cultural revolution in ballet

Frank Carson retire? You must be joking

Heard the one about elderly comics reviving the variety show? No? That’s because they’re serious, says Bruce Dessau

Connie Fisher

Is there life after Maria?

First Night reviews

Summer festivals 2008

Books 

Simon Kernick

Simon Kernick's Harrogate festival diary

The author of Relentless takes us behind the scenes at the sixth annual Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, and reads from his new book

A Sudanese Jiinjaweed fighter rides on a horse in Sudan's western Darfur region

The devil riders of Darfur

A doctor in Sudan witness the atrocities of the Janjaweed

Sean Connery’s book leaves his story untold

It is little wonder that the former Bond hero's book is short on personal detail

The flashy playboys taking over the mafia

Sicily’s Cosa Nostra is stronger than ever – but its new young bosses are doing ‘business’ differently

Book Review

The comic book version of Batman

Batman's secrets

The book with all you need to know about the Dark Knight

Bestsellers

The Big Brother Blog. Our resident reality TV obsessives on the friendships, fights and flirting of Series Nine