Things have suddenly got very colddddddd. As temperatures dip, and you realise that those aesthetic photos of cosy, snowy London that convinced you to move to the city aren’t quite the reality, here are some top tips for keeping warm – and cultured – over the weekend.

Embrace the kink
Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling take on the role of unlikely lovers in Harry Lighton’s new sexed-up drama Pillion. Melling stars as Colin, a wallflower who is seemingly happy in his mundane day-to-day life before he meets Skarsgård’s character Ray, a ballsy leader of the local bike gang. As the pair enter a BDSM relationship, Lighton’s plot charts the growth of two men as they navigate an unconventional dynamic while fully clad in leather and chains, of course.

Dalston Rio’s preview of Pillion runs on Friday 21st November, more info here. 

The Archives
Opening today at The Design Museum is the first UK retrospective of Wes Anderson’s work, delving into the archives of one of Hollywood’s most instantly recognisable auteurs. Created in partnership with Cinémathèque Française, the selection of artefacts and ephemera in the exhibition has been curated in collaboration with Anderson himself and his production company American Empirical Pictures, exploring both his early work in the 90s and his recent Oscar and Golden Globe-winning movies.

Wes Anderson: The Archives runs at The Design Museum until 26th July 2026, more info here. 

Bloody kids
The provocative and influential director Peter Watkins died at the end of October. He was best known for his pioneering docu-dramas The War Game (1966), which depicted the aftermath of a nuclear strike on England and was deemed too horrifying to broadcast by the BBC, and Punishment Park (1971), about political dissidents forced to flee across a desert while being pursued by law enforcement. Both were filmed in a chilling cinéma vérité style that could easily be mistaken for documentary.

However, at the height of his most prolific period, Watkins made a singular and strange satire about the pop music industry starring Jean Shrimpton and Paul Jones (from Manfred Mann) in a lightly-fictionalised role. Privilege (1967) sees Jones become Steven Shorter, a wildly popular pop idol who is secretly being used by the British government as a tool to pacify and control the supposedly rebellious youth culture. The film displays a paranoia that many viewers in 1967 balked at, but it has gone on to become something of a cult classic. Not least because one of Shorter’s hits in the film, Free Me, was covered by Patti Smith on her classic album Easter. 

Privilege is screening at the ICA on Saturday 22nd with an introduction by the film critic Christina Newland. More info here.

Two legends unite in Mayfair
Where would British art be without Maggi Hambling and Sarah Lucas? Longtime friends and two of the most influential figures in British art, they have each shaped its landscape for decades. It’s fitting, then, that they are finally showing work side by side. Spanning both Sadie Coles HQ and Frankie Rossi Art Projects (don’t worry, they’re across the street from each other), the exhibition, cheekily titled OOO LA LA, brings together Hambling’s paintings and Lucas’s sculptures in a harmonious dialogue.

OOO LA LA runs until January 24 at Frankie Rossi Art at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert & Sadie Coles HQ

Cinematic sounds
The sound behind the soundtracks to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive and Bronson, as well as a collaborator with David Lynch, Johnny Jewel will be performing at Earth in Hackney this weekend. As the founder of the Italians Do It Better label, Jewel was instrumental in shaping the brooding and synth-heavy sounds sounds bands like Chromatics and Glass Candy.

Before you head to Hackney, however, you can catch up with our interview with Johnny from 2023. Tickets available here.

Wine and nibbles
The duo behind the Belgravia eatery Wildflowers have opened the doors to a new spot above their restaurant in Pimlico’s Newson’s Yard. Bar Flor is dubbed as the “playful sibling”, offering an ever-evolving wine list featuring bottles from well-known producers and next-gen growers alongside a changing menu of pintxos taking notes from the founders’ favourite regions of Spain. Dishes to keep an eye out for on the menu include a Calamari sandwich, prawn and ibérico guanciale, Cantabrian anchovy and seafood gildas.

Bar Flor is located at Newson’s Yard, 57 Pimlico Rd, SW1W 8NE, more info here.