Cultural Capital: The Critics

Our film critic Ryan Gilbey takes a good look at Brass Eye's Chris Morris and his film directorial debut, Four Lions, David Flusfeder celebrates the "outlaw" cinema of Seventies Hollywood, Emilie Bickerton discusses the Cahiers du Cinéma, and we reveal which films made our list of top ten greatest political films.

Elsewhere, Leo Robson reviews new novels from Andrew O'Hagan and David Mitchell, Sholto Byrnes examines ... read more

Next issue's Critics will be a film special, so in honour of this we have conducted a completely un-scientific poll of NS staff to find the greatest political movies. "Political" was taken in its broadest sense - the only stipulation being no documentaries. You'll have to wait until Thursday's magazine to find out the top ten, but for now here's the longlist.

Tell us in the comments thread below: which films ... read more

In this week's New Statesman, Jonathan Derbyshire meets Philip Pullman, Ryan Gilbey reviews Roman Polanski's film adaptation of The Ghost, and our television critic Rachel Cooke is watching BBC documentaries.

Elsewhere, in music and performance: Rick Jones meets Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov, and Sanjoy Roy remembers choreographer Pina Bausch, while in books: Roy Hattersley reviews Philip Blond's Red Tory, Sophie Elmhirst ... read more

In the Critics section of this week's New Statesman, we have a superb essay by Margaret Drabble on Van Gogh's letters, which are the centrepiece of "The Real Van Gogh", a forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy. To read that piece, you'll have to buy a copy of the magazine.

In the meantime, here's a selection from the other riches on offer this week in The Critics:

Books: Sarah ... read more