Hot tickets: The best of this month’s cultural releases

Film

Motel Destino
Karim Aïnouz
Having made its debut at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, this Brazilian erotic thriller from director Karim Aïnouz is finally getting a wide release. After a hit goes wrong, on-the-run low-level gangster Heraldo (Iago Xavier) arrives at the titular motel and finds himself caught up in a dreamy steamy love triangle with its married owners Dayana (Nataly Rocha) and Elias (Fábio Assunção).
‘Motel Destino’ is released on 9 May

Riefenstahl
Andres Veiel
Leni Riefenstahl is best known for directingTriumph of the Will, a striking Nazi propaganda film. She has been endlessly debated since, questioning whether it’s possible to spin beauty out of evil. But what is not up for debate is her effect on cinema, creating an aesthetic of fascism that influenced everything fromStar Warsto The Lion King: a legacy explored in this incisive documentary.
‘Riefenstahl’ is released on 9 May

The Phoenician Scheme
Wes Anderson
Beloved auteur Wes Anderson returns with this globe-trotting espionage thriller. Regular collaborators Benicio del Toro, Willem Dafoe and Bill Murray are in tow, along with some intriguing first-timers, including Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed and Mia Threapleton. The tone is darker than Anderson’s typical work but, as with all of his films, artful symmetry, cool costuming and deadpan humour are guaranteed.
‘The Phoenician Scheme’ is released on 23 May

Books

Small Boat
Vincent Delecroix, translated by Helen Stevenson
Based on a real event, the sinking of a dinghy carrying migrants across the English Channel in 2021, which led to the loss of 27 lives,Small Boatimagines the subsequent questioning of a radio operator who fielded calls from the vessel at the Cap Gris-Nez marine rescue centre. Delecroix’s urgent novel examines her decision not to send help. It is a work of striking empathy.
‘Small Boat’ is out now

Things in Nature Merely Grow
Yiyun Li
“There is no good way to say this,” Li’s memoir begins. They are the words of a police detective bringing the news that Li’s son, James, has killed himself. This happened in 2024, seven years after James’s brother, Vincent, took his own life. Li does not offer uplift – “One should never evade facts,” she writes – but her meditation on death and grief is extraordinarily powerful.
‘Things in Nature Merely Grow’ is published on 20 May

Suspicion
Seicho Matsumoto, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
Author and publisher Roberto Calasso once called Seicho Matsumoto, who is best known for crime fiction, “the Simenon of Japan”. In this new translation of a taut 1982 novella,
a former Tokyo hostess seduces a businessman. After their wedding they are involved in a car crash; he drowns, she survives. The question is whether the defence lawyer who takes her case is helping an innocent woman or falling into a moral quagmire.
‘Suspicion’ is published on 29 May

TV

Carême
Apple TV1
Marie-Antoine Carême was history’s first celebrity chef. He baked Napoleon’s wedding cake, orchestrated feasts for the Russian tsar and for the British prince regent in Brighton. A luscious series directed by Martin Bourboulon explores the life of this impoverished orphan turned culinary genius and unexpected imperial spy.
‘Carême’ is released on 30 April. For our interview with director Martin Bourboulon, turn to page 50

Pernille
Netflix
Henriette Steenstrup’s comedic creation, middle-aged single mother Pernille, has become something of a national treasure in her native Norway. Also known by the titlePørni, Steenstrup’s series, now in its fifth season, serves up affable, down-to earth chaos.
‘Pernille’ season 5 is released on 15 May

Murderbot
Apple TV1
Apple TV1’s wry adaptation of Martha Wells’s Nebula and Hugo Award-winning book series stars Alexander Skarsgård as a security android who hacks its own systems and achieves free will. Yet, as it turns out, it would much rather be left alone to watch its soap operas than turn on humanity.
‘Murderbot’ is released on 16 May

Music

Journey Through Life
Femi Kuti
Femi Kuti continues to release the kind of kinetic and jubilant protest music by which his father, Nigerian legend Fela, made his name. But on his latest album, Kuti is looking inward. During this up-tempo escapade through his 62 years of innocence and experience, the veteran saxophonist deals out life lessons amid his trademark Afrobeat.
‘Journey Through Life’ is released on 25 April

Lotus
Little Simz
One of the UK’s biggest breakthroughs of recent years returns, having steadily sharpened her voice across five albums, secured a Mercury Music Prize in 2022 and performed triumphant at last year’s Glastonbury (as well as starring in Netflix dramaTop Boyand appearing as herself in aSpider-Manfilm). Her sixth album looks set to seal her superstar status, with an ambitious global genre stew, such as on the percussive lead single “Flood”, which features Nigerian singer Obongjayar and South African rapper Moonchild Sanelly.
‘Lotus’ is released on 9 May

Plaeygirl
MØ
Danish singer MØ was at the forefront of Scandinavia’s glacial synth-pop wave of the 2010s. Her fourth album marks a career rebirth – complete with Alice Cooper-style face paint.Plaeygirlis full of expertly produced synths and big electro beats. It’s not unlike Charli xcx’sBratgone a bit goth.
‘Plaeygirl’ is released on 16 May

Art

Christian Marclay: The Clock
National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavík
A 21st-century masterpiece,The Clockis a 24-hour supercut of 100 years of film and TV history. Every new minute is marked by a clip displaying or mentioning the exact time. Marclay spent three years scouring archives to find each one. For its Icelandic debut, the gallery will stay open all night twice, including on the summer solstice, so that visitors can immerse themselves in the rhythms of the work – or simply set their watches by it.
‘The Clock’ runs 2 May to 22 June

Lorna Simpson: Source Notes
The Met Fifth Avenue, New York
Whether working in painting and photography or text-based wall sculptures, Lorna Simpson always puts people at the heart of her examinations of race, gender, time and memory. This overview of her 40-year career also carries recent highlights from her Special Characters series. The “source notes” of the title are her found images, often cut from vintage magazines.
‘Source Notes’ runs 19 May to 2 November

Photography

The Lure of the Image
Fotomuseum Winterthur,Winterthur
The popular Swiss photography museum reopens after a two-year renovation. This group show draws on three years of online experimentation and dialogue between artists and researchers. ASMR videos and memes will be employed to make serious points about the seductive appeal of photography.
‘The Lure of the Image’ runs from 17 May to 12 October