French director Jacques Audiard’s musical about a Mexican drug lord is a frontrunner for the Academy Awards’ big prizes. But its depiction of the country is stoking criticism.

Rarely is a film so successful with critics and awards voters, yet so controversial to its detractors. Emilia Pérez, written and directed by French auteur Jacques Audiard, won both the Cannes Film Festival jury prize and a joint best actress prize for its four leads back in May. More recently, the Spanish language musical, set in Mexico but mostly filmed in France, has won four Golden Globes, five European Film Awards and been nominated for eleven Baftas. It’s now a favourite to lead the way at this year’s Oscars, when the nominations are announced tomorrow.

Kate Bush wrote her chart-topping debut single when she was just 18 years old. She told the BBC about the origins of a literary love song that began a unique career in music.

Kate Bush’s debut single, Wuthering Heights, was theatrical, undeniably eccentric, and utterly unlike the punk, new wave, prog rock and disco music that dominated the UK charts when it was released 47 years ago this week. And yet the single became an unexpected number one hit in 1978 – the first song written and performed by a female artist to reach the UK top spot. What makes the single even more idiosyncratic is that its title and story are borrowed from Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel – but it was actually a television series that spurred Bush to write the song.
“Well, I hadn’t read the book, that wasn’t what inspired it. It was a television series they had years ago,” she told Michael Aspel in a BBC interview in 1978. As a teenager she had come across the end of an episode of a 1967 BBC adaptation of Brontë’s tale of doomed love. Its startling imagery had captivated her. “I just managed to catch the very last few minutes where there was a hand coming through the window and blood everywhere and glass. And I just didn’t know what was going on and someone explained the story.”

Chappell Roan can’t be stopped.
Over the last 12 months, the 26-year-old has become the buzziest star in pop. A flamboyant, flame-haired sensation, whose songs are as colourful as they are raw.
Her debut album, released to little fanfare in 2023, has just topped the UK charts for a second time. Next week, she’s up for six Grammy awards, including best new artist. And BBC Radio 1 have named her their Sound Of 2025.
Success has been all the sweeter because her former record label refused to release many of the songs that exploded onto the charts last year.
“They were like, ‘This is not gonna work. We don’t get it’,” Roan tells Radio 1’s Jack Saunders.
Watch Radio 1’s full interview with Sound Of 2025 winner Chappell Roan.
Reaching pop’s A-list isn’t just a vindication but a revolution.
The 26-year-old is the first female pop star to achieve mainstream success as an openly queer person, rather than coming out as part of their post-fame narrative.
On a more personal level, she’s finally got the financial security to move into a house of her own, and acquire a rescue cat, named Cherub Lou.
“She’s super tiny, her breath smells so bad, and she doesn’t have a meow,” the singer dotes.
If kitten ownership is a benefit of fame, Roan has bristled at the downsides.