Lucy Punch’s middle-class antihero is back, and one half of the Knife presents an album of dazzlingly inventive psychedelia.Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviewsBBC iPlayerSummed up in a sentence This retrospective on one of David Attenborough’s greatest pieces of TV is packed with brilliant anecdotes.What our reviewer said Victoria Bobin’s rollicking film is the story of a giant pop-culture moment, a gang of mates remembering how they sensed conditions were right to create a blockbuster masterpiece – if they were willing to flirt with failure and even death to get there.” Jack SealeRead the full reviewFurther reading Happy centenary, David! Attenborough’s 100 most spectacular TV momentsBBC iPlayerSummed up in a sentence The return of the much-loved Motherland spin-off, focusing on delusional, narcissistic mum Amanda.What our reviewer said “Lucy Punch’s portrayal of Amanda is mesmerisingly convincing.

Lumley is also magnetic as her mother, Felicity.’” Rachel AroestiRead the full reviewFurther reading ‘Everyone knows an Amanda!’ Joanna Lumley and Lucy Punch on the return of comedy smash, AmandalandBBC iPlayerSummed up in a sentence A gasp-inducing documentary about a man’s love for the insects that bumble around his garden … and ended up changing his life.What our reviewer said “There is something pleasantly bee-like about Dohrn’s award-winning film.A leisurely thing, it drifts woozily around the photographer’s garden, picking up facts here and there and storing them like pollen in little pouches on the backs of its thighs.” Sarah DempsterRead the full reviewMGM+Summed up in a sentence This period comedy, starring Mandy Patinkin as a Rhode Island robber baron, is a singular work of art.

What our reviewer said “It has a similar pugnacious whimsy, but with cold steel hidden in the folds of its grubby velvet gown,” Jack SealeRead the full reviewIn cinemas nowSummed up in a sentence Carla Simón’s distinctive drama in which a young woman arrives in a Spanish coastal city to meet the family of her dead father, who are hiding information about his life and death,What our reviewer said “Simón has an instinctive and almost miraculous way of just immersing herself within extended freewheeling family scenes – her camera moving unobtrusively in the group, like another teenager at the party, quietly noticing everything,” Peter BradshawRead the full reviewFurther reading Director Carla Simón: ‘I have feelings for Spanish culture and Catalan culture’In cinemas nowSummed up in a sentence Documentary by Orban Wallace following right-to-roam campaigners as they offer bacchanalian antics and a heartfelt message in a wide-ranging exploration of the topic,What our reviewer said “Ramblers are justified in keeping the pressure up and the take-home message is: opening up the glories of the countryside and nature itself to everyone is a universal good.

” Peter BradshawRead the full reviewFurther reading Momentum building for Scottish-style land access rights in England, says filmIn cinemas nowSummed up in a sentence Lee Sang-il’s heartfelt kabuki drama spans 50 years following the bond and rivalry between two young men who play the rigorously observed female roles in the traditional art form.What our reviewer said “The emphasis is largely upon discipline and commitment in the service of art, a vocational self-immolation in which the transformation of pain into beauty is the whole point.” Peter BradshawRead the full reviewIn cinemas nowSummed up in a sentence Hugh Jackman plays a farmer in this Babe-style family film about plucky sheep who help solve a murder.What our reviewer said “The great feelgood trick pulled off by this film is that the murder, involving a character we’ve been encouraged to like and invest in emotionally – much more so than in traditional detective stories – doesn’t get swamped with sadness and shock.The film scoots smartly past the death and brings us briskly on to the entertaining business of sheep-oriented crime detection.

” Peter BradshawRead the full reviewMubiSummed up in a sentence Chadian writer-director Mahamat Saleh Haroun’s beautifully gentle and lucid film about two boys’ forlorn attempt to find their father.What our reviewer said “This movie has moments that linger in the mind: the boys running back from the cinema, the boys playing keepie-uppie in the street, the boys walking on their hands after looking for their father at the Chad-Cameroon border crossing, with all the insouciance of childhood, unable yet to comprehend the seriousness of what has happened to them.” Peter BradshawRead the full reviewReviewed by John SimpsonSummed up in a sentence A landmark new account of the 1979 revolution provides context for current events.What our reviewer said “The history of the Iranian revolution has been written many times, but I haven’t found an account as clear and free of preconceptions as this one.”Read the full reviewReviewed by Alexandra HarrisSummed up in a sentence Six months in the life of a rural English village.

What our reviewer said “The small particularities are charged with a sense of cosmic change.This is concertedly a novel of, and for, an era of ecological crisis.”Read the full reviewReviewed by Sam LeithSummed up in a sentence Nineties-set gothic extravaganza in which students are caught up in the mystery of a haunted house.What our reviewer said “It’s a great hotchpotch, working like mad to entertain and spook the reader.The 500-odd pages whip by.

”Read the full reviewReviewed by Blake MorrisonSummed up in a sentence A history of the social and cultural impact of DH Lawrence’s controversial novel.What our reviewer said “Cuthbertson has been a diligent researcher, spending many hours trawling through archives and cuttings.He has even looked through the trial judge’s copy of the book, with its highlighting of rude words.”Read the full reviewReviewed by Emma BrockesSummed up in a sentence Posthumously published memoir on the impact of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes.What our reviewer said “Giuffre’s recollections of Prince Andrew, a man with whom she was allegedly forced to have sex three times, present him in an even more buffoonish and grotesque light.

”Read the full reviewFurther reading Virginia Giuffre on her abuse at the hands of Epstein, Maxwell and Prince AndrewOut nowSummed up in a sentence Squiggling melodies and quizzical distortion banish the winter gloom Dreijer brought to his band the Knife.What our reviewer said “Dreijer has created his own walled garden of psychedelia, conjuring the light and scent of a summer in bloom.” Ben Beaumont-ThomasRead the full reviewOut nowSummed up in a sentence Lyrics about naked owls and eating rocks might be irksome to some – but there’s no denying that the alt-rocker’s fifth album is beguiling, tightly written and richly melodic.What our reviewer said “A melodically gifted singer-songwriter, music that’s subtle but never bland; these are disarmingly straightforward pleasures that all the strangeness – mannered or otherwise – can’t obscure.” Alexis PetridisRead the full reviewOut nowSummed up in a sentence Schumann’s Dichterliebe is at the heart of this disc from the mezzo-soprano and pianist Sholto Kynoch.

What our reviewer said “Charlston’s voice flows like molten lava, every word crystal clear,” Clive PagetRead the full reviewOut nowSummed up in a sentence ​Essaying a broken heart, the New Yorker puts her voice front and centre for her most accessible work yet,What our reviewer said “For the first time, we hear Roxanne’s lovely, wispy voice in lucid detail, as she contemplates loss and desire over slow and stripped-back compositions,” Safi BugelRead the full reviewRoyal Opera House, London, to 28 MaySummed up in a sentence A gripping revival of Britten’s opera updates the staging to a present-day, left-behind English coastal town, with Allan Clayton excellent as the titular tormented fisher,What our reviewer said “Clayton’s Grimes is a role in which he currently has few rivals”.

Erica JealRead the full review