We bring you our guide to living well in the world’s capitals, from exhibitions to cinema, food, drink, fashion, music and beyond. Just call it culture and take it, it’s yours.

LONDON, FRIDAY 5th SEPTEMBER – SUNDAY 7TH SEPTEMBER 2013

A cook, a thief, a spy, a banker, the lot
If there’s one film you must catch this month then it has to be A Most Wanted Man from director Anton Corbijn, with a spellbinding performance from the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Besides the gravitas this film will inevitably have bound to it being Hoffman’s final film role there is a deeply smart, subtle, and steadily absorbing story to be drawn into – centring around a near-dead half-Chechen, half-Russian man on the run, a British banker and a young female lawyer all of whom are being unawarably watched by a roguish chief of a covert German spy unit (Hoffman).

This tale of intrigue, love rivalry and politics amidst the international war on terror bubbles with tension right from the outset, doing John le Carré’s novel and the memory of Hoffman’s poised brilliance a more than worthy justice.

A Most Wanted Man, 122mins, in cinemas now

The Stones, Shirley Bassey and Judie Dench topless
Most famously known for his iconic portraits photographer David Farrell, who died aged 93 last month, is remembered in a major exhibition featuring some of his most beloved images.
Snaps from his 30 year career including the likes of 60s superstars The Beatles, Shirley Bassey and the Rolling Stones can be seen at  Osborne Samuel Gallery throughout September.

David Farrell, Osborne Samuel Gallery, 1-20 September, 23a Bruton Street, London W1
Until 20th September

So good he’s named it twice
On to another photographer at the V&A, a man who was hailed by Vogue and a generation of creatives as “photography’s alchemist,” the legendary Horst P Horst. Known for his portraits of personalities such as Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich as well as his mastery of new colour techniques of the 1930s, and Surrealist-inspired collaborations with Salvador Dalí and Elsa Schiaparelli, Horst’s images graced the covers of over 90 Vogue magazines in his lifetime.

An exhibition of this scale has many highlights but besides the well known fashion images are jaw-dropping portraits and interiors of a bygone era, incredible moment-immortalising shots of the homes of the 60’s jet-set for Home and Garden – including the lavish dwellings of everyone from The Rothschilds to Andy Warhol and Yves Saint Laurent’s Moorish Morrocco garden paradise. That’s style.

Horst: Photographer of Style,Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL
Until 4th January 2015

An all-nighter with substance, not substances
If you’re into Matisse you’re in for a treat this weekend. Not only is Tate Modern holding an all-nighter in honour of the final week of his incredible Cut-Outs exhibition, made in the final years of his life, but there’s also a number of his prints up for viewing alongside an impressive number of Freuds and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrecs at the Courtauld Gallery within Somerset House. We would recommend going post-Saturday night drinks but that’s asking for trouble. It’s either/or.

Matisse All-Nighter, Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG
Bruegel to Freud, Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand London WC2R 0RN

Loaded
Located on Hackney’s rapidly reforming Well Street, The Gun appears to have done its best to stick to its roots post-takeover, looking every inch a (fine) local boozer. Apart from a sexy neon on the back wall and the presence of DJ Nathan Gregory Wilkins who often plays records there, that is. Like a pint and a ploughman’s, it’s a perfect combo.

The Gun, 235 Well Street, Hackney, E9 6RG