The Devils review – Ken Russell’s 1971 possessed-nuns tale is a frenzied aria of confrontation and hysteria

Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave put in the performances of their lives in this film originally banned for obscenity that highlights the violence of power

In One Brief Moment All Eternity by Elif Shafak review – what Madame Bovary thought of Flaubert

This audacious portrait of the French author through the eyes of his women is Shafak’s love letter to literature in dark times

Arnie & Barney review – dimwit ant double-act from Maya the Bee are on mission to entertain

From the ugly design to the lacklustre script, this is one parents might want to skip this half-term holiday

Time Being by Jude Cook review – a smart existential tale of midlife

A fatal mistake sparks this juicy melodrama, in which a philosophy professor navigates the guilt of being a survivor

Michael Gambon: the authorised biography review – a brilliant actor, and a master deceiver

From the National Theatre to Harry Potter, Gambon’s shapeshifting life leaves many questions still unanswered

War Is Interested in You by Gideon Rachman review – are we on the brink of world war three?

A foreign affairs expert’s bleak assessment of the state of global security

Music Against the Night by Yiyun Li review – a virtuosic interrogation of the power of art

What does it cost, to live your life in the hope of immortality? Li examines the gulf between talent and genius through the marriage of two real-life musicians

Stranger things turn an English village upside down in Max Porter’s rural noir Lanny

A family are just getting used to their new home in this haunting drama when a parallel world emerges

Children’s and teens roundup – the best new picture books and novels

A sumptuous collection of fairytales; a dreamy Minotaur retelling; the explosive finale of the YA Torch Trilogy and more

Under Fire by Humza Yousaf – a deeply affecting story of being stranded in Gaza

The former Scottish first minister writes of his in-laws’ plight and the tragedy of those who weren’t so lucky

Black Bag by Luke Kennard audiobook review – brilliant Booker-shortlisted campus comedy

The author reveals his mastery of comic timing in his narration of this novel about a cash-strapped actor paid to live inside a black leather bag

Female Life on Planet Earth by Laleh Khadivi review – a mother’s secret past in the Iranian revolution

A woman living in California discovers her mother may have been a merciless enforcer of the Islamic revolution, in an intriguing novel of inheritance and identity

The Mystery of What Befell in the Ditch by Thure Erik Lund review – is this the greatest living Norwegian writer?

Translated into English at last, this portrait of a man appalled by modernity and desperate to get back to nature is brimming with Nordic weltschmerz

On Another Planet They Can Save Me by Lieke Marsman review – an astonishing memoir of terminal illness

Published four months after her death, the poet’s reflections on mortality are both agonising and profoundly life-affirming

TS Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral review – gather in wonder at David Suchet’s excellent archbishop

The poet’s 1935 verse drama has its eccentricities but the meticulous star plays Thomas Becket with a Shakespearean relish