This new film by director, composer and moving image artist Imran Perretta may be one of the best you'll see all year. Co-written by Perretta and Enda Walsh, it follows a group of young teenagers from the Middle Eastern and South Asian community in Luton. It’s a hauntingly beautiful and poetic tale of coming of age, loss of innocence and friendship, as the boys try to navigate their identities as Israel ravages its genocide in Gaza and as British police ramp up stop-and-search efforts. The lead characters, best friends Ish and Maram – played by two real-life friends from Luton, Farhan Hasnat and Yahya Kitani, with no previous acting experience – deliver an unforgettably authentic performance, set against a harrowing, sometimes otherworldly and always dazzling score written by Perretta. The film will make you laugh a lot and cry a lot. You'll never forget it. Also worth checking out is the director’s The Destructors, a 23-minute film now playing at Tate Britain (free entry). 

Lucia Osborne-Crowley, Nerve writer

This book perturbs for all the right reasons. It fits the genre-fiction bill for a post-apocalyptic sci-fi book while also conducting a profound, non-prescriptive meditation on the present day. Announced last week on the Booker prize longlist, it is set in a liminal, achingly familiar setting, beginning with an “artefact” collector named Phillip whose journey begins when he pulls something new out of the water. The writing is stirring and unlikely, in a kind of adult Patrick Ness way. It is our London, but not really; it is about unfettered technological growth, but not quite about that. Those topics would seem almost limiting to what Harrison is really asking: what are we trying to understand? And who do we become if we don’t?

Anandita Abraham, writer

National-treasure-in-waiting Trewley Precious is an online influencer with almost a million TikTok followers. This Channel 4 documentary follows her efforts to build on that success and “start an empire”, but while still upholding the strong traditions of the Traveller community. She’s smart, gobby and funny, cheerily describing her siblings (Honey, Ruby-Anne, Pearlygirl and Jamie) and mum Tina as “if the Kardashians were fat and on benefits!” Her sisters now have families of their own but Trewley doesn’t want to go down that route yet, determined to use her voice to discuss alternative opportunities for Traveller women. The show also focuses on how the shattered family is rebuilding itself after beloved dad Sid died three years ago.

Set on a neglected estate in Clacton, the lack of funding seen in Nigel Farage’s constituency comes to the fore. Ruby-Anne points out to friend Dee: “We’re pigeons and they’re eagles and no one that’s meant to care, does care.” And it’s because of this that Trewley wants to be able to give back to her family and community. You can’t help but cheer her on. It could have been exploitative, but with Trewley clearly in control, instead it’s poignant, big-hearted and full of kindness.

Lynsey Irvine, Nerve co-founder and creative director

When Nick Hakim released his third album, 2022’s Cometa, it was rarely out of my earbuds. Sexy, sensual, a little cringe – it depicted new love in all its gauzy sweetness. In the years since, he’s worked with artists as varied as Miley Cyrus (big pop), Lil Yachty (offbeat rap) and Beth Orton (on her Americana-y 2026 album), ended a record deal and a relationship, and returned at the end of July with I Can See. Gauze firmly lifted, the American artist has created a ghostly and watery world of soulful boom-bap folk that sounds like it’s rising up from a shipwreck towards the shard of sunlight on the surface. The production is what really sparkles here: woozy, sticky, ethereal and brilliantly weird, echoing the title of one track, Soft Wet Clay. These are songs about becoming unstuck and reshaping yourself. The pitched-up falsetto style of vocals could well be a Marmite moment but if you let that go, this is an intricate, intimate listen that you can get lost in for days.

Kate Hutchinson, Nerve music critic

If the last three Spider-Man films (and his various outings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) followed Tom Holland maturing into superhero life, then Brand New Day is his melancholy arrival into adulthood. Alone, with the world not knowing who Peter Parker is, due to a world-saving spell cast in No Way Home, he's navigating life without his late Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), and true love MJ (Zendaya). So he throws himself into his crime-fighting alter ego to combat that loneliness.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton grounds Spidey in a street-level story with indie film resonance that captures the humour, charm, sadness and earnestness of the New York hero. It offers blockbuster displays of Spider-Man's web-slinging powers, with homages to the various comic-book covers and panels he emerged from, plus odd-couple team-ups with the Punisher (Jon Bernthal) and Bruce Banner/the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to entertaining effect. This isn't just another superhero sequel, but a comic-book movie that understands the rich character history and the trials and tribulations inherent to the world Peter Parker lives in. 

Hanna Flint, author and critic

This politically charged and deeply personal exhibition by pioneering American artist Del LaGrace Volcano – their first major solo show in the UK – brings together previously unseen, largely black-and-white photographs of queer communities in San Francisco and Santa Fe from the 1970s and 80s. 

Distinctive and tender, the power of Volcano’s work arguably lies in its authenticity; the artist depicts the world they were part of. Scenes of protest, pleasure, self-creation and survival capture extraordinary moments of collective care, powerfully relevant to the present day. The images celebrate imagination and fluidity, resisting conventional representations of gender and sexuality. In Kevin & Alan, Goodman Building (1980), an intimate embrace is full of warmth, reflecting life inside an artist-run hotel on rent strike. Mandy, Beth & Estelle, ARF (1985) pictures women gathered on sunlit rocks by natural pools, a joyful vision of belonging and freedom. A sister exhibition, Love Bites Back, will be presented at Edinburgh Art Festival 2026 (14-30 August).

Meg Molloy, writer and founder of Working Arts Club

EVENT
Inside Out: Echoes
(Photographers Gallery, London W1, Saturday 8 August, 1-5pm)

To coincide with its major exhibition Japanese Women Photographers: From the 1950s to Now the gallery will hold a free outdoor music event this Saturday, hosted by RIEKO and featuring Japanese musicians alongside films by Umi Ishihara. Sign up here.

THEATRE
Supernova 
(Pitlochry Festival theatre, 24 July-21 August 2027)

The theatre’s new artistic director, Alan Cumming, stars alongside Ewan McGregor in the world premiere of the stage adaptation of Harry Macqueen’s hit film.

FESTIVAL
Rock N Roll Circus 
(Don Valley Bowl, Sheffield, 27-30 August)

A mix of music and circus, with headline acts including the Kooks, the Streets and Wunderhorse.

FILM
Claude Chabrol – Elements of Crime 
(BFI, London SE1, 1 September-6 October)

Tickets go on general sale on Thursday for a season celebrating the New Wave director dubbed the “French Hitchcock”.

Tracey Emin: A Second Life
(Tate Modern, London SE1, until 31 August)

Paintings, textiles, videos… that bed! Forty years of work from the former YBA, now Dame.