FILM

1) The Theory of Everything
Were this not quite such a strong year for lead actors, Eddie Redmayne would be a sure thing for his miraculous, buckled portrayal of Stephen Hawking in this biopic based on the memoirs of his first wife, Jane. Felicity Jones takes her role, and handles it just as beautifully; James Marsh is as rigorous with the facts as he was on the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire. 2 January (all release dates below UK only).

2) Birdman
Michael Keaton gives us a career best with his performance as Riggan, an actor who became rich and famous playing a superhero called Birdman but is now trying for artistic credibility by starring in his own self-produced Broadway play. As his personal and professional life unravels, Riggan is haunted by the derisive voice of Birdman, his alter ego, telling him to forget this art nonsense and return to making commercial movies for the masses. 2 January.

3) Enemy
Jake Gyllenhaal vies with Jake Gyllenhaal for top billing in the Dostoevskian tale of a man (Gyllenhaal) who meets and exploits his exact double (Gyllenhaal). Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve adapts Nobel prize-winner José Saramago’s posthumously published novel into a sickly story of paranoia and fatigue. Gyllenhaal(s) have rarely been better. 2 January.

4) Taken 3
Using his very particular set of skills, Liam Neeson cranks it up once again for another go-round of the French-produced, Hollywood-inspired hostage drama. Originally a flag waver for the geri-action phenomenon, the first Taken’s surprise success in 2008 turned the now 62-year-old Neeson into an improbable thug grappler. Judging by its trailer, Taken 3 has more of the same, with Neeson’s ex-special ops guy Bryan Mills pursued by every law enforcement agency known to man after he’s arrested for the murder of his wife. 8 January.

5) Foxcatcher
An extraordinary but still little-known true story is at the heart of this movie about toxic maleness. Steve Carell gives a superb and deadly serious performance as John DuPont, a spoiled billionaire who, in the 80s, decided to bankroll the training facilities for the US Olympic wrestling team — and tried to befriend the sport’s top stars, the Schultz brothers - Mark and Dave - played by Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo. The atmosphere of warped mentoring and competition is compelling. 9 January.

6) Into the Woods
Stephen Sondheim’s musical smash has now been adapted into a Disney movie starring Meryl Streep, Anna Kendrick, Johnny Depp and Emily Blunt. The drama explores and reinvents the myths and legends of the Grimm Brothers’ universe, with echoes of Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel and Cinderella. A childless couple are forced to venture into the woods to confront the witch who has cursed their attempts to have children. 9 January.

7) Whiplash
A talented young drummer (Miles Teller) shreds sticks and nerves under the monstrous tutelage of Terence Fletcher (JK Simmons), his abusive music teacher. Dubbed Full Metal Juilliard on the festival circuit, Whiplash is a beats, not bombs war movie. When the kid fouls up, the general throws a cymbal at his head. Frantic, relentless, punky and fun, Whiplash is at our tempo. 16 January.

8) American Sniper
At 84, Clint Eastwood is in no mood to slow down. His new film is based on the autobiography of Navy Seal Chris Kyle, the self-proclaimed “most lethal sniper in US military history”. Bradley Cooper stars as Kyle himself, who later achieved celebrity in a civilian life that became as dramatic and extraordinary as anything on the field of battle. 16 January.

9) Testament of Youth
Thirty-five years after the BBC series based on Vera Brittain’s first world war memoirs comes another adaptation by Auntie: this one gorgeous and swooning, much more Euro-movie than Brit flick with Alicia Vikander as the headstrong Oxford hopeful Vera. Dominic West and Emily Watson are ma and pa and Game of Thrones’s Kit Harington is among the young men Vera knows who are dispatched to the trenches. 16 January.

10) Wild
Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir about hiking 1,100 miles to deal with the death of her mum is taken off into the wilderness by screenwriter Nick Hornby and director Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club). Wild is a tough road movie, a two-hour hallucinatory montage of sight and song as Cheryl (Oscar-tipped Reese Witherspoon) stamps her way to redemption. 16 January.

11) Beyond Clueless
Film essayist Charlie Lyne goes back to school with a coy examination of the 90s and 00s teen movie scenes. From exposing the frat boy comedy Euro Trip as a homoerotic odyssey, to pilloring Josie and the Pussycats as a rallying cry for consumerism, Lyne revels in analysing silliness with thoughtful sincerity. 23 January.

12) La Maison de la Radio
France’s gentlest, most compassionate documentarian returns a few years after Nénette (about an orangutan in Paris’s botanical gardens’ zoo) and a dozen after his best-known work, Etre et Avoir, with this peek behind the scenes of France’s national radio. He shot over 24 hours inside the beehive of Radio France, as music was played and fiction was created, news broke and pundits jabbered. Unique and inspired stuff. 23 January.

13) Mortdecai
Johnny Depp channels his inner Englishman once again for a comedy based on Kyril Bonfiglioli’s Charlie Mortdecai novels, about a top-hole art dealer with a penchant for getting mixed up in unpleasant crimes. Exuding an Austin Powers meets PG Wodehouse vibe, this looks pretty funny, even if no actual English chap appears to have got anywhere near the principal credits. 23 January.

14) The Gambler
Devotees of tough, murky 70s American cinema will fondly recall The Gambler, James Toback’s fictionalised account of his years of addiction. Now the film has been remade with Mark Wahlberg in the old James Caan role as the jittery English professor mired in debt and menaced by hoodlums. Salvation or disaster is just a dice throw away. 23 January.

15) A Most Violent Year
Sidney Lumet may be dead, but his spirit lives on in the form of talented writer-director JC Chandor. A Most Violent Year is a pungent, potent tale of early 80s New York, riddled with crime and crusted with snow. Oscar Isaac shines as the ambitious immigrant entrepreneur, Jessica Chastain rides shotgun as a Brooklyn Lady Macbeth. 23 January.

16) Kingsman: The Secret Service
You wait all year for an ironic take on the bowler-hatted 60s, and two come along at once. Following hard on the heels of Mortdecai comes this deconstruction of the Ian Fleming-style gentleman spy, with Colin Firth as the veteran agent attempting to instruct his wayward nephew (Taron Egerton) in the arts of the great game. This reunites the team behind Kick-Ass - director Matthew Vaughn, screenwriter Jane Goldman, comic-book writer Mark Millar – and there’s no reason to suggest this won’t be a repeat of the earlier film’s high entertainment value. 29 January.

17) Big Hero 6
How do you follow up a generation-defining event like Frozen? Having stolen the thunder from its sister company Pixar, Disney is now set to horn in on its hipster-superhero territory by exploiting the properties of yet another company it recently bought: Marvel. A kid called Hiro, living in a futureworld amalgam of San Francisco and Tokyo and his balloon-like robot chum Baymax thwart a conspiracy with the help of a gang of friends with superpower suits. This beat Interstellar on its opening day in the US, so the portents are good. 30 January.

18) Son of a Gun
Former Home and Awayer Brendon Thwaites is the petty criminal offered a Faustian pact in jail from Ewan McGregor’s hardened robber: protection for a favour on the outside. The stage is set for a mix of mentor-mentee bust-ups, gold-oriented heist action, and steamy romance with Sweden’s Alicia Vikander. 30 January.

19) Inherent Vice
If you can remember the 60s, you weren’t actually there. And if you can explain Inherent Vice, you’ve surely been watching it wrong. Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film is a ramshackle joy, full of double agents, shifty hippies and renegade cops. Our guide through the revels is Joaquin Phoenix’s stoner PI, but he’s so glazed and befuddled that he’s shooting at shadows. Your best advice: tune in, turn on and enjoy the trip while it lasts. 30 January.

20) Trash
Those on the lookout for the next Slumdog Millionaire should keep their eyes on this boisterous, sentimental tour of the developing world, directed by Stephen Daldry from a Richard Curtis script. Trash spotlights a trio of teenage foragers on the rubbish dumps of an unnamed South American city. A mysterious wallet may just provide their ticket out of the ruins. 30 January.

21) Selma
Selma is about the 1965 US civil-rights marches led by Martin Luther King that set off from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery to protest against the insidious obstruction of voter registration for black Americans. The 600 marchers were attacked with clubs and tear gas by police. David Oyelowo plays King; Carmen Ejogo plays Coretta Scott King and Tom Wilkinson plays President Lyndon Johnson. 6 February.

22) The Duke of Burgundy
Excitement levels are high and the temperature is boiling ahead of the arrival of The Duke of Burgundy, in which a libidinous lepidopterist makes the housemaid her mistress. Director Peter Strickland burnishes his credentials as one of the UK’s most distinctive film-makers with a playful, teasing slice of erotica that aims to fire the mind as well as the loins. 6 February.

23) Jupiter Ascending
One minute Mila Kunis is playing a down-on-her-luck caretaker with no prospects. The next (apparently) she has met a genetically modified strongman (Channing Tatum) and been told she’s the intergalactic heir to the planet Earth. You can never accuse the Wachowskis of setting their sights low. Jupiter Ascending is their $200m space opera, tipped as a gaudy, ambitious marriage of Star Wars and The Matrix. 6 February.

24) Love is Strange
Ira Sachs’s snuggles-only old-age romance won a restrictive “R” rating from the US censors, presumably because the long-term couple it depicts are men. Still, US audiences have flocked to this very moving story of New York couple John Lithgow and Alfred Molina who get married after decades together, only to find themselves forced to live apart when the Catholic school at which Molina teaches fires him for coming out. 6 February.

25) Shaun the Sheep: The Movie
Shaun the Sheep has come a long way from a throwaway gag in A Close Shave. Having evolved into a highly successful kids TV series, the feisty ovine now gets his own feature film, proving there’s life post-Wallace and Gromit in the Aardman stop-motion stable. There’s a Pig in the City kind of thing going on, with Shaun and his woolly chums heading off to the big smoke to track down the hapless Farmer. 6 February.

26) Fifty Shades of Grey
“Mr Grey will see you now,” runs the tagline. And you, no doubt, will see a fair bit of Mr Grey. Sam Taylor-Johnson’s take on EL James’s bonkbuster has The Fall star Jamie Dornan on kit-off duty. He plays the mysterious business type whose relationship with a young college graduate (Dakota Fanning) heads into sexy, slappy territory. 13 February.

27) The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Ol Parker’s grey-pound cash cow opens its doors once more. Most of the old faithfuls are still checked in – Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Celia Imrie and Penelope Wilton – leaving two newcomers to squabble over the only spare room. These fresh prospective residents at the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful are, rather weirdly, Richard Gere and Tamsin Greig. 27 February.

28) Chappie
District 9 director Neill Blomkamp reunites with actor Sharlto Copley for the third time in this artificial intelligence sci-fi yarn, in which Copley provides the voice for the newly minted robot of the title. With a name like that, it ought to be a comedy, but first glimpses suggest there’s a seriousness of intent here, as Chappie grows and learns in a human-like fashion. Hugh Jackman and Dev Patel are along for the ride. 6 March.

29) Still Alice
Julianne Moore is a dead cert for the best actress Oscar for her role in this drama about a neurology professor with early-onset Alzheimer’s – it’s a devastating, immaculate performance that blows the competition out of the water. There’s strong support from Alec Baldwin as her husband, torn between caring for his wife and furthering his career, and Kristen Stewart as their apparently irresponsible offspring, who winds up saving the day. 6 March.

30) The Face of an Angel
Michael Winterbottom handles hot potato material – the murder of Meredith Kercher and subsequent trial of Amanda Knox – with deft fingers. His approach is to turn the focus inwards, exploring why a young director (played by Daniel Brühl) might find the case so interesting, and how the gathered international press (in particular Kate Beckinsale’s glam hack) feed off the story – and each other. 6 March.

31) Jane Got a Gun
Natalie Portman stars as a woman defending her home against a gang of no-good cowboys in Gavin O’Connor’s western. A rocky production saw the saloon doors hit Lynne Ramsay on the way out. Jude Law left town with her, before Ewan McGregor climbed into the saddle. Let’s see what state the film’s in now the smoke’s cleared. 6 March.

32) Suite Française
Irène Némirovsky’s novel of the same name had a belated publication: the manuscript was discovered by her daughters in 1998, 56 years after she died at Auschwitz. Its path to the screen since publication in 2002 has been fairly swift, then: Michelle Williams stars as the married woman in occupied France who becomes attracted to a German officer (played by Matthias Schoenaerts). Saul Dibb directs, and Kristin Scott Thomas is Williams’s formidable mother-in-law. 13 March.

33) In the Heart of the Sea
The Essex was a US whaling ship that was sunk by its quarry, leaving its starving survivors adrift in the ocean. Now up sails director Ron Howard, adapting the bestseller by Nathaniel Philbrick, to dredge this tragic nugget of history up from the depths. We’re seeing this one as Moby Dick meets Alive. 13 March.

34) Top Five
Chris Rock writes, directs and stars in this romcom about a washed-up comedy action star (Rock) engaged to a ghastly reality-TV star and making a bid for serious artistry with a 12 Years a Slave-style flick about the Haitian revolution. Rosario Dawson’s New York Times reporter tags along with him for the day, with predictable – but uproariously funny and irreverent – results. 20 March.

35) Wild Tales
“I see violence all over the place,” says one character in this extraordinary portmanteau movie from Argentina. This is a collection of wild tales: angry, crazy, untamed. A fashion model on a plane makes a bizarre discovery about her passengers and there is calamity. A waitress recognising a nasty customer leads to bloody mayhem. A road-rage incident culminates in bizarre farce. And lots more. 27 March.

36) Furious 7
Make vrrrrroom for chunky Vin Diesel and beefy Dwayne Johnson as they squeeze into sports cars to put the Fast and Furious franchise’s pedal to the metal once more. They’ve gained a baddie (Jason Statham playing the terrifying-sounding “Ian Shaw”), but must lose a friend. Co-star Paul Walker died in a high-speed car crash while Furious 7 was being filmed. 3 April.

ART AND DESIGN

37) Represent: 200 Years of African-American Art
Philadelphia has one of the best collections anywhere of black American painting, photography and applied arts, and this show of more than 100 artists will insist on both the breadth of the black experience and its centrality to US art history. Decorative arts from the 19th century by both free and enslaved African Americans form the starting point for a pluralist showcase that takes in academic painting and folk art, street photography and textiles. Rather than isolate abstract black painters and sculptors from politically engaged artists such as Glenn Ligon and Lorna Simpson, the show articulates a vibrant, unified tradition.
From 10 January to 5 April, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

38) Rubens and His Legacy
The swirling energy of Rubens makes his art a feast of colour, violence, eroticism and history that entranced the rulers who paid him to decorate palaces across early 17th-century Europe, and has fascinated artists ever since. From the French Romantic painter Delacroix, whose fierce chromatic fireworks owe Rubens everything, to Picasso, who claimed to loathe Rubens but was manifestly influenced by him, this promises to be a truly stupendous celebration of a cultural giant.
From 24 January to 10 April, Royal Academy, London.

39) Marlene Dumas: The Image as Burden
In a retrospective that blurs painting and drawing, the personal and the public, Dumas portrays people with exceptional tenderness and vulnerability, humour and sadness, from sexy, bare-all watercolours to portraits of the living and the dead. Pasolini and Phil Spector, Osama bin Laden and Alan Turing are among her roll call of heroes and villains.
From 5 February to 10 May, Tate Modern, London.

40) History Is Now: 7 Artists Take On Britain
John Akomfrah, Simon Fujiwara, Roger Hiorns, Hannah Starkey, Richard Wentworth and Jane & Louise Wilson each curate a section of a spiky show that takes British society from 1945 to the present, touching on everything from the CND movement to the BSE outbreak, urban planning and reality TV. Expect icons and iconoclasm.
From 10 February to 26 April, Hayward Gallery, London.

41) Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester
Signalling Manchester’s growing importance as a centre for the visual arts, the Whitworth’s £15m expansion opens with multiple exhibitions and displays, including key works and new commissions by Cornelia Parker, the beautiful watercolours of Thomas Schütte, and a 45-metre-long gunpowder drawing by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang.
Opening 14 February.

42) Walkie Talkie sky garden
Guy de Maupassant said his favourite place to dine was the Eiffel tower, because it was the only place in Paris where he couldn’t see it. So Londoners will be relieved to hear that the panoramic “sky garden” of the Walkie Talkie tower will open from spring, serving overpriced refreshments out of the glare of its death ray. 20 Fenchurch Street, London.

43) Architecture of Independence: African Modernism
Heroic concrete archways, daring domes and enigmatic pyramid structures will feature in what promises to be a fascinating German show of African modernist architecture from the 1950s and 60s – a little-known period of bold experimentation following many central and sub-Saharan countries’ independence. Curated by Manuel Hertz, with photographs by Iwan Baan, the exhibition will chart more than 50 public buildings in countries such as Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Zambia, Ghana and Senegal.
From 20 February to 22 May, Vitra Design Museum, Weil-am-Rhein, Germany.

44) A house for Essex, by FAT and Grayson Perry
Looking like a souped-up gingerbread house crossed with a Thai temple, this fairytale holiday home in the Essex countryside designed by Grayson Perry and FAT architects will open for bookings in spring. Prospective Hansels and Gretels will be able to dine beneath a motorbike chandelier and sleep tucked up in a nest of gaudy tapestries.

45) All of This Belongs to You
One of the first exhibitions produced by the V&A’s new contemporary architecture and design department, this provocative show will infiltrate the rambling pile in London’s South Kensington with a series of specially commissioned interventions from the likes of Muf and James Bridle, exploring civic issues from technology and security to citizenship and democracy, to tie in with the general election.
From 1 April to 19 July, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

46) Jason Rhoades: Four Roads
First museum survey of the late LA artist Jason Rhoades, whose labyrinthine installations combine everything from industrial machinery, power tools, salmon eggs, neon, dirty words and US west coast kitsch. There’s horror and zany politics, autobiography and poetic overload, and a lot of craziness to unpack.
From 20 February to 31 May, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.

47) Tate Britain Commission 2015: Christina Mackie
Taking on the Duveen Galleries in an installation inspired by her interest in pigments and colour, Mackie’s complex tableaux mix materials and processes, the found and the made in a rich multilayered meditation on the world around us. Call it painting without paintings, sculpture without sculptures.
From 24 March to 18 October, Tate Britain, London.

48) Sargent
It’s quite the thing in the art world to “rediscover” artists whose works are dismissed as a bit slight. So often, such exercises by curators or critics are unconvincing. John Singer Sargent is the exception – a truly brilliant painter whose work is infinitely more serious and provocative than it might seem at a cursory glance. This American artist who worked in Britain and Europe was the painter par excellence of the wealthy world in the age of Henry James (one of his portrait sitters). Yet he was also au fait with French impressionism and friends with Monet. His subtle, silvery, seductive portraits are not just swaggering; they are disconcertingly truthful, uneasily modern and full of glittering irony. The golden bowl is cracked.
From 12 February to 26 May, National Portrait Gallery, London.

49) Leonora Carrington
This British surrealist who died in 2011 had a spectacularly adventurous life in which she married Max Ernst, fled the Nazis, was institutionalised after a mental breakdown and finally settled in Mexico. This exhibition is a fascinating opportunity to see how her art lives up to her life.
From 6 March to 31 May, Tate Liverpool.

50) Björk
The Icelandic experimental pop star gets a full-scale exhibition, organised by puckish curator Klaus Biesenbach. Björk’s albums, from Debut to Biophilia, are just one part of her accomplishment; she pioneered the coextensivity of art and pop, often through bold collaborations with directors (Michel Gondry), designers (Alexander McQueen) and visual artists (Matthew Barney, her ex). And it would be surprising not to see that swan dress. The museum is promising a new “music and film experience” commissioned especially for MoMA.
From 7 March to 7 June, Museum of Modern Art, New York.

51) Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty
Was the late fashion designer a great British artist? His surreal imagination and appetite for shock made him the sartorial contemporary of the Young British Art generation. His designs still have the surbversive quality many of them have lost.
From 14 March to 19 July, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

52) Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art
Sculptures from the Parthenon in the British Museum collection will be displayed alongside loans from all over the world in what promises to be an unprecedented opportunity to understand one of the great moments in art. Around the start of the 5th century BC, the stiff archaic forms of Greek sculpture escaped their fetters and the dynamism and realism known as the “classical” style was unleashed. At its heart was a completely new lifelikeness in images of the human body. The Greek body beautiful is the theme of this epic, sexy encounter with some of humanity’s highest achievements.
From 26 March to 5 July, British Museum, London.

53) Hokusai
Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts has the best collection of Japanese art outside Japan – and the biggest cache anywhere of prints by the first Japanese artist to achieve international fame. Alongside his indelible prints of the Great Wave or Mount Fuji, this huge deal of a show, spanning seven decades of Hokusai’s career and accompanied by two different publications, will present lesser-known pieces such as screen paintings, dioramas and delicate illustrations done on paper lanterns.
From 5 April to 9 August, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

54) Whitney Museum of American Art
Just what the world needs: another museum designed by Renzo Piano. Yet for all the grumbling that has accompanied the Whitney’s departure from its beloved Brutalist home in uptown New York, the new building – beside the Hudson River, at the foot of the packed-to-capacity High Line park – will offer its curators unprecedented space for exhibitions, as well as a swanky waterfront theatre for performance art. The inaugural exhibition will draw exclusively from the Whitney’s permanent collection; the old Whitney building will be handed off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, who will use it as a satellite location.
From 1 May, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

PHOTOGRAPHY

55) Metamorphosis of Japan After the War
Featuring more than 100 black and white images by 11 leading postwar Japanese photographers, this show is divided into three sections: The Aftermath of the War; Between Tradition and Modernity; and Towards a New Japan. Featuring work by Shomei Tomatsu, Ken Domon and Yasuhiro Ishimoto, it traces one of the most dramatic periods of change any society has undergone. From 22 January to 26 April, Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool.

56) Human Rights Human Wrongs
Featuring more than 250 prints from the Black Star agency archive and curated by Mark Sealy from Autograph APB, this show explores the role images play in helping to raise awareness about conflict and human rights. It includes images of the civil rights movement in the US, independence movements in Africa, Middle Eastern and south American uprisings, the Vietnam war and key social unrest protests in Europe.
From 6 February, the Photographers’ Gallery, London.

57) Dominic Hawgood: Under the Influence
The first London show for Dominic Hawgood, the young British photographer who recently won the BJP’s international photography award for his ambitious series, Under the Influence. It looks at African evangelical Christian churches in London through a mixture of the staged and the real, using lighting design and CGI as well as film and stills.
From 19 February to 7 March, TJ Boulting, London.

58) Taryn Simon and Florence Henri
An intriguing double bill that contrasts an overlooked pioneer of European avant-garde photography with a contemporary American artist whose work merges art and documentary. Simon’s best known project is An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, in which she gained access to secret sites including a nuclear storage facility, a quarantine site and the rooms that hold the CIA’s art collection.
From 24 February to 17 May, Jeu de Paume, Paris.

59) Salt and Silver
A homage to one of the oldest and rarest forms of photography: salted paper prints. Invented by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, the technique – applying household salt to paper before coating it in silver nitrate solution – created a new, richer and more detailed visual language, transforming still lifes, portraits and landscapes. The few salt prints that survive are seldom seen due to their fragility so this is a rare chance to enjoy them.
From 25 February, Tate Britain, London.

60) Format Photofestival, Derby
The theme for this year’s Format Festival is Evidence – how the idea of the photograph as an “evidential document” has changed over the years. The main group exhibition is entitled Beyond Evidence – An incomplete narrative of photographic truths, and includes new work by Natasha Caruana, Edmund Clark, Mishka Henner and Cristina De Middel. From 13 March to 12 April, various venues, Derby.

61) Revelations: Experiments in Photography
Originally planned as Media Space’s opening show in 2013, this ambitious exhibition examines the influence of early scientific photography on modern and contemporary art. It will showcase pioneering examples of scientific photography by the like of William Henry Fox Talbot, Eadweard Muybridge and Harold Edgerton alongside works by contemporary artists including Hiroshi Sugimoto. From 20 March to 13 September, Science Museum Media Space, London.

62) The Chinese Photobook
Curated by Martin Parr and mischievous photographic duo WassinkLundgren, The Chinese Photobook was one of the big crowd-pullers at the 2014 Arles photography festival. A visual history of Chinese culture with highlights that range from the picturesque - Peking the Beautiful (1927) - to the propagandist - Impressions of Chairman Mao: Recent Photographs of the Great Leader of the Chinese People (1945).
From 17 April, the Photographers’ Gallery, London.

63) Christopher Williams: The Production Line of Happiness
The first British survey show, spanning 35 years, for an American artist whose work subverts the techniques of advertising and challenges the conventions of photographic representation. Williams studied under John Baldesarri in the early 1970s and his work is deeply conceptual, unapologetically cerebral and often wilfully elusive.
From 29 April to 21 June, Whitechapel Gallery, London.

64) The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2015
Another much-debated shortlist for the annual prize for groundbreaking contemporary photography. Vivienne Sassen’s bright geometric images from her Umbra series must make her the people’s favourite, but South African photographer Mikhael Subotzky must be in contention also for his hugely ambitious project, Ponte City, made in the tallest tower-block in Johannesburg.
From 17 April to 7 June, Photographers’ Gallery, London.

MUSIC

65) The Decemberists
The Oregon-based quintet return in January with their seventh album, What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World, which goes easy on the prog-folk-metal concept pieces and plays to their strengths: witty, involved, literary, semi-acoustic folk pop with intriguing twists and turns. A UK tour follows in February. Rough Trade, January.

66) Queen and Adam Lambert
Replacing flamboyant Freddie Mercury with dour Paul Rodgers was a failure, but the former American talent-show contestant has proved to be a better fit for the Queen live show – a good enough fit that their UK tour has extended to more arena dates. Tour begins in Newcastle on 13 January.

67) Charli XCX
Sucker is the follow up to 2013’s True Romance and sees Charli XCX working with Rivers Cuomo and Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij on what, from the sounds of Break the Rules and summer smash Boom Clap, promises to be an album of glossy pop with a rebellious streak. Atlantic, January.

68) Sleater-Kinney
The lauded US punk trio announced their reformation in suitably low-key style, with a 7in single of a new song, stamped with the release date of new album No Cities To Love and slipped into this year’s career retrospective box set, causing a certain kind of music fan to go nuts with anticipation. Sub Pop, January.

69) Adele
The non-appearance of Adele’s third album in 2014 was blamed for a fall in label XL’s turnover and profits. Now it’s rumoured to be on course for January 2015: the only solid fact about its contents seems to be that Phil Collins isn’t on it after Adele rejected a song he wrote for her.

70) The Charlatans
Their 11th album, Modern Nature – the first following the death of drummer Jon Brookes – boasts a soul influence and features guest appearances from New Order’s Stephen Morris and Big Jim Paterson of Dexys, among others. BMG, January.

71) Alt-J
The eclectic, Mercury-winning art rockers have graduated to headlining the arenas in the wake of their second No 1 album This Is All Yours, with a show at the O2 Arena in London. 24 January.

72) Bob Dylan
Hot on the heels of the 960-page edition of his lyrics – a signed copy is yours for $5,000 – comes Shadows in the Night. Released in early February, it’s rumoured to be largely comprised of covers along the lines of the teaser track Full Moon and Empty Arms, most famously performed by Frank Sinatra. Sony/Columbia, February.

73) Public Service Broadcasting
The faux fuddy-duddy duo became an unexpected hit with a debut album that combined drones and samples of old public information films. February’s follow-up is called The Race for Space, suggesting they may have moved continents and decades for source material. But the question remains: how do you develop an aesthetic so definite from its inception? Test Card Recordings, February.

74) Frank Turner
The former punk turned perma-gigging folkie has described his forthcoming sixth album as “upbeat”, and also as “still about the long dark night of the soul”, which certainly makes for a challenging juxtaposition. Said harrowing party album should be with us in February. Xtra Mile.

75) Noel Gallagher and High Flying Birds
The joke is irrestistible: have you heard Noel Gallagher’s putting out an album to promote his latest round of interviews? The halcyon days may have passed, but the elder Gallagher remains bullish enough to dismiss the possibility of Oasis reforming for Glastonbury, ploughing on with a new High Flying Birds album, Chasing Yesterday. Sour Mash, March.

76) Tobias Jesso Jr
This extraordinary young musician is a lo-fi Harry Nilsson – his first recordings were released on limited-edition flexidisc singles – creating heartfelt piano ballads that drip with melancholy. Expect the editions to become less limited, the formats less esoteric and his gigs to move from living rooms to big rooms this spring, as Matador release his debut album, Goon. Matador, March.

77) McBusted
With their portmanteau novelty value having now faded, the combined forces of McFly and Busted are out to prove that they have legs with a series of UK enormo-dates in March and April. There will be a new album out by that time, too, although we’re not entirely sure who goes to a McBusted gig hoping to hear new material. Tour begins 12 March in Glasgow.

78) Ludacris
It will be five years since we last had an album from Ludacris, and in all that time the best title he could come up with was Ludaversal. Still, the Neptunes are on production duties and the rapper promises that it will be his “most personal album to date”. Def Jam, March.

79) Simple Minds
The past couple of years have seen Simple Minds’ reputation fully restored, as groups old and young hail the groundbreaking chilly experimentalism of their first few albums, and good reviews for their new effort Big Music. So maybe don’t expect them to be concentrating on Don’t You Forget About Me and Alive and Kicking on their jaunt round the UK in March and April. After touring Europe, the UK leg begins in Grimsby on 27 March.

80) Nick Cave
The veteran gothic-blues balladeer promised to make a “unique show – something special and out of the ordinary” for his April and May dates. So it’s being billed as a rare solo world tour, despite the fact he’s taking a band comprising four present or past members of the Bad Seeds. He’s rarely less than compelling, but how unique this will be remains to be seen. Tour begins in Glasgow on 26 April.

81) Public Access TV
Polydor are pouring money into this New York-based quartet, which is eyebrow raising, for they sound like nothing so much as a skinny-tied new wave group from 1979. On the plus side, they’ve found a niche no one else has colonised. On the negative side, maybe no one has colonised it because the public aren’t interested. We’ll see as they start raising their profile in early 2015.

82) Juce
Finally, a juice craze that doesn’t involve curly kale. Georgia, Chalin and Cherish make up the buzziest band in London right now, with their smart take on 90s dance and R&B coming with a series of great videos – and even greater synchronised dance moves, if you’ve got the courage to copy them.

83) Raury
Still in his teens, Raury isn’t about to get tied down to any one genre. Or even 100 genres: much of his music defies simple categorisation, and that’s down to his ability to dance in the divides between folk, psychedelia, soul and the left-field hip-hop of his native Atlanta. No wonder Kanye West is a fan.

84) Drake
Not an awful lot is known about Drake’s fourth album, Views From the 6, although we do know that “the 6” in question is the Canadian rapper’s nickname for his native Toronto. Drake says it’s still being written, but the three songs he put online in October – including a rap-influenced club track and a blissed-out ballad with maudlin lyrics – suggest it might be business as usual.

JAZZ

85) Wynton Marsalis/Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra - Duke, Dizzy, Trane & Mingus: Jazz Titans
World-music of the 20th century traced through jazz by Marsalis and his JLCO, via the most eclectic works of Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus - including Ellington’s Latin American Suite, Coltrane’s Ole Coltrane and Africa Brass, and Mingus’s Tijuana Moods.
From 29-31 January, Rose Theater, Lincoln Center, New York.

86) Dr John & The Nite Trippers
New Orleans star Dr John has lately been paying heartfelt tribute to the most famous New Orleans star of all: Louis Armstrong, who he’s currently celebrating with the music from his Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch album. These Frith Street shows are a rare chance to hear this blues-rooted original up close and personal.
From 13-14 March, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, London.

87) David Sanborn/John Scofield/Jon Cleary
Saxist Sanborn’s soul-power and funkiness have made James Brown and David Bowie his employers over the decades, but he’s always driven a searing jazz spontaneity through the blues licks and grooves. He shares this show with the duo of guitarist John Scofield and pianist/singer Jon Cleary, viewing New Orleans music through a 21st century prism.
On 11 April, Barbican, London.

CLASSICAL

88) Opening of the Philharmonie de Paris
It may have taken decades of planning, vastly over-budget construction, and internecine Parisian arguments, but Paris’s new concert hall, designed by Jean Nouvel, is finally ready to open its doors. The Galas d’ouverture start with the Orchestre de Paris, followed closely by concerts by the Philharmonie’s other resident ensembles, Williams Christie’s baroque specialists Les Arts Florissants, and the new music virtuosos of the Ensemble Intercontemporain.
Opens 14 January, Philharmonie de Paris.

89) Iolanta and Bluebeard’s Castle in New York
Valery Gergiev’s performances may have become increasingly uneven, but the Russian operatic repertory still brings the best out of him, and Tchaikovsky’s final opera has long been one of his specialities. In this new Met double bill, Iolanta is paired with Bartók’s one-act masterpiece, in productions by the Polish director Mariusz Trelinski that promise to be influenced by 1940s film noir.
In rep from 26 January to 21 February, Lincoln Center, New York.

90) Barbara Hannigan in London and Rome
The Canadian soprano is one of the hottest properties in new music today, and two works specially composed for her get their premieres in the first few months of the new year. Hannigan joins Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic to introduce Magnus Lindberg’s new piece, while it’s Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia in Rome that will partner her for Salvatore Sciarrino’s Orpheus-inspired scena.
On 28 January, Royal Festival Hall, London; 28 March, Auditorium Parco della Musica, Rome.

91) Berliner Philharmoniker’s London residency
Simon Rattle brings his Berliners to London for a two-centre showcase; surely the last chance to savour this partnership with such intensity in the UK before Rattle leaves Berlin in 2018. In London, they present a complete Sibelius cycle on three consecutive nights at the Barbican, and Mahler and Lachenmann at the Royal Festival Hall.
From 10-15 February, Barbican and Southbank Centre, London.

92) Harry Partch with MusikFabrik
On tour in Munich, Salzburg and Frankfurt, the German ensemble MusikFabrik present music by the American visionary and musical original Harry Partch: his And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma. It’s music that revels in the unique sounds, sights, and sensualities of Partch’s invented instrumentarium. Musikfabrik have recreated Partch’s astonishing instruments - from the Cloud Chamber Bowls to the Crychord and the Bloboy; don’t miss the chance to hear them live if you can.
On 21 February, Muffathalle, Munich; 6 March, Republic, Salzburg, Austria; 21 March, Alte Oper, Frankfurt.

93) Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
A new production of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s opera at Covent Garden from the Royal Opera’s associate director of Opera John Fulljames has a lot at stake: to do justice to the work’s acerbic, lacerating, and irresistible satire, and to signal the success of the company’s current artistic ambitions. Mark Wigglesworth conducts what will be a highly charged show.
From 10 March to 4 April, Royal Opera House, London.

94) Parsifal Berlin
The glitzy centrepiece of the Berlin Staatsoper’s 2015 Festtage is a new production of Wagner’s Bühnenweihfestspiel, conducted by Daniel Barenboim with Andreas Schager, Anja Kampe and René Pape heading the cast and the production entrusted to the utterly unpredictable Dmitri Tcherniakov.
From 28 March to 18 April, Schiller Theater, Berlin.

FESTIVALS

95) All Ears, Oslo
A festival of improvised jazz, noise and other things that sound like something going badly wrong in a cement factory, curated by one of the world’s best drummers, Paal Nilsson-Love. Lasse Marhaug, Okkyung Lee and Spencer Yeh will cleave pure noise from guitar and cello strings, while Sunn O)))’s Stephen O’Malley gets abraded by Steve Noble’s drum flurries.
From 9-11 January, various venues, Oslo, Norway.

96) London short film festival
The eighth year of this fest, taking place at the ICA and Hackney Picturehouse, is the selection box it’s OK to gorge on after Christmas. Tens of short films are screened, grouped under thematic umbrellas like Funny Shit, Teenage Girls Go Crazy!, and Youth of Today. Highlights include the Stephen Mangan-narrated Guinea Pig, and Exchange & Mart, starring Ewen Bremner.
From 9-18 January, ICA and Hackney Picturehouse, London.

97) CTM festival, Berlin
Brave the scorchingly cold Berlin winter for this equally chilly selection of underground electronic music: the organisers promise “acerbic grindcore hallucinations, psychedelic drone freakouts, numbing consumer-trash beats, and future-punk ecstasies.” Highlights include chaotic Cairo electro from EEK, mournful rap from Suicideyear and Yung Lean, and Evian Christ’s astonishing new A/V show.
From 23 January to 1 February, various venues, Berlin, Germany.

98) Bloc Weekend
Their last attempt at a festival may have ended in overcrowding and swift cancellation, but Bloc’s return is a staggeringly strong conference of the world’s techno grandmasters. Jeff Mills, Autechre and Ben Klock cater for the austere; Clark, Helena Hauff and Cut Hands for the industrially-minded; Hudson Mohawke, Moodymann and ESG for the funky, plus over 80 more. From 13-15 March, Butlins Resort, Minehead, Somerset.

THEATRE

99) Constellations
Jake Gyllenhaal makes his Broadway debut as beekeeper Roland alongside Ruth Wilson as quantum physicist Marianne in Nick Payne’s metaphysical love story. A wonderful, giddy two-hander about the infinite possibilities of love and having no time, yet all the time in the world.
From 13 January to 15 March, Samuel J Friedman theater, New York.

100) The Hard Problem
It’s almost a decade since Tom Stoppard’s last play, Rock’n’Roll. There has been talk of writer’s block. No longer, as Nicholas Hytner directs the world premiere of a piece that examines consciousness, faith, psychology and biology and asks, What is it that makes us really human, and will the mind ever give up its secrets to the MRI scanner and the computer?
From 21 January to 16 April, Dorfman, London.

101) Sarah Kane Season
Major retrospective of the dark, funny and heartfelt plays of Sarah Kane, with performances of them all, from Blasted to 4:48 Psychosis, the last play she wrote before her death at 28. All the plays plus discussions and talks and a screening of her short film, Skin. Richard Wilson will direct a play that helped change the face of British theatre, Blasted, and Daniel Evans, who appeared in two of Kane’s plays, tackles Phaedra’s Love and Cleansed.
From 4 February to 21 March, Sheffield theatres.

102) The Life and Times of Fanny Hill
Since she sprung from the pages of John Cleland’s 1748 novel, Fanny Hill has been a notorious woman. April de Angelis’s new adaptation explores infamy, desire, pleasure and sexual politics in a production in which Caroline Quentin heads up a six-strong ensemble. Pete Flood of folk ensemble Bellowhead provides an original score.
From 5 February to 7 March, Bristol Old Vic.

103) Death of a Comedian
How much does it cost to be funny? Steve Johnston is a standup who may be about to hit the big time. But can a Faustian bargain ever be a bargain, and does success only come at a price? Following Johnston across four gigs, this co-production between Dublin’s Abbey and London’s Soho theatre is a world premiere from on-a-roll Belfast playwright Owen McCafferty.
From 7 February to 1 March, Lyric, Belfast.

104) Beautiful: the Carole King Musical
It wasn’t much loved by the critics, but this jukebox show inspired by the life and music of the writer behind hits such as Take Good Care of My Baby, Locomotion and You’ve Got a Friend has been a real word of mouth hit on Broadway. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t do as well in London, which has taken biomusicals such as Jersey Boys and Sunny Afternoon to its heart.
From 10 February, Aldwych, London.

105) The Giants
The biggest show ever to hit Australia, Royal de Luxe’s extraordinary outdoor show is the highlight of this year’s Perth festival. It’s a specially tailored Australian version of a performance called Sea Odyssey that was in Liverpool in 2012. With its 30ft puppets, it’s a real crowd-pleaser from the ingenious company whose previous shows include The Sultan’s Elephant, which brought central London to a standstill in 2006 when millions came out on the streets to watch.
From 13 February to 7 March, Perth festival.

106) Man and Superman
How should we live? Radical thinker Jack Tanner is a man who is wrestling with that and other ideas. But soon he finds himself in a debate about independence with both his ward, Ann, and the devil. Ralph Fiennes stars for London’s National Theatre in a revival of Bernard Shaw’s comedy in a production directed by Simon Godwin, a director very much making his mark with classic revivals.
From 17 February to 17 May, Lyttelton, London.

107) Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage
Welsh rugby legend Gareth Thomas was on the eve of one of the most important games in his career when he was tipped off that a tabloid was going to “out” him as gay. National Theatre Wales and Out of Joint combine forces to tell a story about sport and politics, living lies and being determined to tell the truth in a show that asks why it’s still so hard to be a prominent gay sportsman in 21st-century Britain.
From 19 February to 7 March, Sherman, Cardiff.

108) Antigone
Love, duty and principled rebellion are at the core of Sophocles’ great tragedy. Juliette Binoche returns to the London stage to play the sister who defies her uncle Kreon, the king, in order to bury the body of her slaughtered brother who has been declared a traitor against the state. Europe’s hottest director, Ivo van Hove, is at the helm with TS Eliot prize-winning poet Anne Carson providing a new translation.
From 4-28 March, Barbican, London.

109) Skylight
Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan reprise their roles as successful businessman Tom and committed teacher Kyra who had an affair and meet again a year after Tom’s wife’s death. But it’s less a meeting of minds than a clash of values and ideologies in Stephen Daldry’s nuanced revival of David Hare’s drama.
From 16 March to 21 June, John Golden theatre, New York.

110) Wolf Hall, Parts One and Two
It’s been described as the “mother of all costume dramas”, and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, charting the life and times of Henry VIII’s adviser Thomas Cromwell, is certainly epic theatre in Jeremy Herrin’s Royal Shakespeare Company production. If Broadway audiences are up for the intricacies of Tudor politics, this is entertaining, old-fashioned narrative theatre.
From 20 March to 5 July, Winter Garden theatre, New York.

111) Death of a Salesman
How’s this for great casting? Antony Sher plays Willy Loman who finds that life doesn’t measure up to his dreams and Harriet Walter is his hard-pressed loyal wife, Linda. Add to that Alex Hassell (who recently played Prince Hal to Sher’s Falstaff in Henry 1V) and Gregory Doran’s revival of Arthur Miller’s great play looks as if it could be a dream come true for the RSC.
From 26 March to 2 May, Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.

112) Sweeney Todd
Emma Thompson may be playing Mrs Lovett, who claims to make the worst and then the best pies in London. But will the English National Opera’s production of Sondheim’s dark, brooding musical melodrama be the best, particularly when London has seen so many good chamber versions in recent years? Still, with Bryn Terfel as Sweeney and Philip Quast as Judge Turpin, this should be a tasty treat.
From 30 March to 12 April, London Coliseum.

113) The Audience
We can’t get enough of either Kristin Scott Thomas (recently seen as Electra) or Peter Morgan’s play about a series of meetings between the monarch and her PMs between 1952 and the Diamond Jubilee in 2012. Scott Thomas will be claiming the crown in this new version of the play – possibly including a meeting with Tony Blair – which is also opening on Broadway this season with Helen Mirren reprising her role as HM.
From 21 April to 25 July, Apollo theatre, London.

DANCE

114) Richard Alston Dance Company
For 45 years Richard Alston has been working his own pure seam of dance making: but for his latest work, Nomadic, he heads off on a startling tangent collaborating with Ajani Johnson-Goffe, the UK hip-hop dancer and choreographer. It’s a dialogue of contemporary and street dance, experience and youth and is set to music by the urban Gypsy band, the Shukar Collective. Live music is key to this special performance – which celebrates the 20th anniversary of Alston’s own company and includes his setting of the Britten score Rejoice in the Lamb and Martin Lawrance’s Madcap, whose Julia Wolfe score is played by the new music ensemble Icebreaker.
From 26-27 January, Sadler’s Wells, London.

115) The Associates
This promises to be a cracking triple bill, bringing together three of Sadler’s Wells’s impressive army of associate choreographers. Crystal Pite’s A Picture of You Falling deploys her talent for poetic image making in a tug of war of atavistic emotional patterns; Hofesh Shechter’s The Barbarians in Love finds passion within the mathematical precision of its baroque inspired score; and completing the programme is Smile, a new collaboration between Kate Prince and Tommy Franzén, which explores the man behind the comic mask of Charlie Chaplin.
From 5-8 February, Sadler’s Wells, London.

116) Romeo and Juliet: Northern Ballet
Jean-Christophe Maillot is one of the busiest choreographers in Europe, best known for his sharp, distinctive take on familiar classics, like his new Taming of the Shrew for the Bolshoi Ballet. No British company has performed his work and it’s a coup for Northern Ballet to have acquired his version of Romeo and Juliet which focuses more on the complex adolescent intensities of the two lovers, than on the political feuding of their families.
From 26-28 February, Edinburgh festival theatre; 4-12 March, Grand Theatre, Leeds.

117) Sleeping Beauty: American Ballet Theatre
Alexei Ratmansky, a choreographer with one of the liveliest and best informed takes in ballet history, creates his first production of The Sleeping Beauty. Based on the original Petipa choreography, its designs are inspired by the gorgeous (if ruinously expensive) production that Léon Bakst created for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in 1921.
From 3-8 March, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Costa Mesa, California; 29 May to 13 June, Metropolitan Opera, New York.

118) Frame of Mind: Sydney Dance Company
Under Rafael Bonachela’s direction, SDC have acquired a new international gravitas, marked this season by their performance of William Forsythe’s searing masterpiece Quintett. It’s the first ever showing of this work in Australia, and it’s programmed with Frame of Mind, a new piece by Bonachela himself that explores parallel themes of beauty, transience and loss, set to music by Bryce Dessner (guitarist with US indie band the National) in a recording by the Kronos Quartet.
From 6-21 March, Sydney theatre, New South Wales, then touring.

119) Bayadère – The Ninth Life: Shobana Jeyasingh
In 1877 Marius Petipa choreographed his Indian-themed ballet La Bayadère as pure exotic fantasy. Now in a thrilling act of reclamation, Mumbai-born choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh reimagines that fantasy in her own terms, exploring the roots of the original story that was used by Petipa alongside the experiences of real Indian dancers when they first performed in Europe in the 19th century.
Preview 18 March, Mac, Birmingham; then 25-28 March, Linbury Studio Theatre, London, and touring.

120) FLEXN
Director Peter Sellars is all about the flex dancing. Having entranced opera audiences with his recent casting of the Brooklyn dancer Banks in The Gospel According to the Other Mary, Sellars is due to premiere an entire flex production at New York’s Park Avenue Armory. Created with Reggie “Regg Roc” Gray , a pioneer of this extreme, rhythmic and highly expressive form of street dance FLEXN is a mediation on the US juvenile justice system, with an ensemble of 18 dancers images by photographer Richard Ross, and live music from DJ Epic.
From 25 March to 4 April, Park Avenue Armory, New York.

121) Triple bill: Royal Ballet
Ballet companies are busy fishing in the deep pool of contemporary dance, and this season London’s Royal Ballet has commissioned Hofesh Shechter to create a new work that tests their dancers with his dark, visceral and gravity-bound style. The new Shechter is programmed alongside George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments - nearly 60 years old, but still one of the most modern ballets on the stage – and with Kenneth MacMillan’s moving, monumental setting of Mahler’s Song of the Earth.
From 27 March to 14 April, Royal Opera House, London.

122) Diana Vishneva: On the Edge
The great Russian ballerina has long displayed a curiosity about the world outside the classical repertory and in this programme of specially composed works she tests her range against two very different European choreographers. Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Switch is a trio set to the film music of Danny Eifman, performed with Bernice Coppieters and Gaëtan Morlotti. Carolyn Carlson’s solo Woman in a Room is a meditation on a life’s journey, inspired by the intense inwardness of Andrei Tarkovsky’s cinema and set to music by Italian minimalist Giovanni Sollima.
On 14/16/18 April, Coliseum, London.

123) Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch
Since Pina Bausch’s death in 2009, her company have been replenishing the repertory with little known works from her early career. This season they stage two productions never before seen in the UK. Auf dem Gebirge hat man ein Geschrei gehört (On the Mountain a Cry Was Heard) was created in 1984, and while recalling Bausch’s earlier Rite of Spring in its earth-covered stage, it features a more emolliently eclectic range of music (Billie Holiday, Edith Piaf and Henry Purcell) in its accompanying score. This is followed by the 1987 production Ahnen, in which the dancers’ search for love and meaning is framed by a stageful of enormous cacti. Classic Bausch.
From 15-18 April and 23-26 April, Sadler’s Wells, London.

COMEDY

124) Josie Long
One of the hit shows of the 2014 Edinburgh fringe, Josie Long’s latest outing focuses for the first time on family life and affairs of the heart. All that’s best about Long – her excitability, her politics, her overbrimming imagination – is prominent in this account of heartbreak and hope on the precipice of middle age.
From 19-31 January, Soho theatre, London, then touring.

125) SF Sketchfest
One of America’s best-loved comedy festivals returns this spring, for the 14th year running, with a yet-to-be-announced lineup likely to include the brightest stars in US comedy. Last year’s jamboree featured Eugene Mirman, Kurt Braunohler, Amy Schumer and Jack Black, among many others.
From 22 January to 8 February, various venues, San Francisco, California.

126) Billy Connolly
The indefatigable Billy Connolly follows up his recent tour of Scotland with a 12-date tour of Australia, in cheerful defiance of his Parkinson’s disease – not to mention his recent recovery from surgery for prostate cancer. The Scottish shows revealed the Big Yin’s comic powers to be scarcely diminished: Australia has a treat in store.
From 27 January, Deakin’s Costa Hall, Geelong, Victoria, then touring.

127) Kim Noble
Not strictly comedy - not strictly anything - the performance artist and former 50% of Noble + Silver brings his troubling, tender show to London’s Soho after an Edinburgh fringe debut. Bulldozing its way through ethics, good taste and other people’s privacy, You’re Not Alone dramatises Noble’s search for connection in a lonely world.
From 3 February to 7 March, Soho Theatre, London.

128) Count Arthur Strong
Opinion was divided over the merits of Count Arthur Strong’s BBC sitcom, of which a new series is in the pipeline. But there’s no denying the character’s clout, or the brilliance of Steve Delaney’s performance, when the cantankerous old thesp takes to the stage. His new tour, Somebody Up There Licks Me, starts in February.
From 5 February, Norwich Playhouse, then touring.

129) Dylan Moran
Since he last brought a new show to the British Isles, the wine-bibbing Irishman and Black Books star has toured to Estonia, Kazakhstan, Latvia and Ukraine. This spring, his new set, Off the Hook, finds the shambling, lyrical ex-Perrier champ playing 54 dates, including London’s Hammersmith Apollo and the Mareel arts centre in Lerwick, Shetland.
From 4 March, Caird Hall, Dundee, then touring.

130) SXSW Comedy
“The ever-expanding mash-up of music, culture, technology and buzz,” says the New York Times, which is Austin’s South by Southwest festival, is also a highlight on the US comedy calendar. Last year’s acts included Todd Barry, Upright Citizens Brigade and a pre-scandal Bill Cosby. An announcement on the 2015 lineup is due soon.
From 14-21 March, various venues, Austin, Texas.

TV

131) Indian Summers
Most known for contemporary drama, Channel 4 goes period in a big way with what has the feel of a latter-day companion piece to a 1984 British TV classic: Granada’s The Jewel in the Crown. This new drama about the British occupation of India, starting in Poona in 1932, has a cast that includes both superstars (Julie Walters) and newcomers (Ash Nair). Unusually in these TV times, it’s a 10-parter, but producer Charles Pattinson has impressive long-form legs from Our Friends in the North. Channel 4.

132) Poldark
Even more of a retro-drama – a remake of a BBC1 hit that ran from 1975-77 – is this adaptation of Winston Graham’s sequence of novels that starts with the return of Ross Poldark, a soldier who has been fighting in the American wars of independence, to his Cornish home. He discovers his fiancee is about to marry a rival – always a good spring for fiction – and begins his fightback by becoming a tin-mine tycoon. All TV dramas these days are expected to have long-haul potential, and there are 12 Poldark novels to mine if they want them. BBC1.

133) Broadchurch
Rock bands concerned about “difficult second-album syndrome” have nothing to worry about in comparison with the difficult second series of a super-smash-hit TV crime drama that seemed to have reached a natural conclusion at the end of the first run. The most tempting narrative for commentators will be that season two fails to live up to its remarkable first year. But it will be fascinating to see what writer Chris Chibnall gives returning leads David Tennant and Olivia Colman to do. Teaser previews – with the slogan: The end is where it begins – suggest some kind of continuing plot, although may alternatively refer to a geographical setting such as Land’s End. ITV.

134) Stonemouth
The multitalented novelist Iain Banks (1954-2013) is still mourned by his readers, but they get some consolation in this much-anticipated BBC Scotland adaptation of Stonemouth, his penultimate non-sci-fi novel. It begins with a homecoming: Stewart Gilmour (Christian Cooke) is lured back by a family funeral to the Scottish village he left after a sex scandal. A story with a backdrop of gang wars has drawn a cast including one of the UK’s most magnetic screen actors, Peter Mullan. BBC1 Scotland/BBC2.

135) Better Call Saul
Fans of Breaking Bad await Better Call Saul with excitement and dread. First mooted as a half-hour comedy starring Bob Odenkirk as slippery lawyer Saul Goodman, the show has since transformed into a more familiar hour-long drama. We assume it’ll trace Goodman’s gradual corruption. We’ve heard the country song written about him. And we really hope it won’t be another Joey. Netflix.

136) Fortitude
Stanley Tucci. Christopher Eccleston. Sofie Gråbøl. Michael Gambon. You’d watch Fortitude for the cast alone, but the fact that it’s a hard-hitting Scandi-esque crime drama written by the creator of Low Winter Sun doesn’t hurt either. Very few upcoming shows can match Fortitude for sheer potential. Sky Atlantic.

137) Mad Men
Although it’s no longer the best show on television – it’s not even the best show on its US network – the last series of Mad Men hit enough transcendental flourishes to assure viewers that it would go out with a bang next year. Don’s redemption. Peggy’s rise. Pete’s hairline. This is going to be unmissable. Sky Atlantic.

138) Cucumber, Banana and Tofu
Perhaps the most ambitious thing that Channel 4 has ever attempted. Cucumber, a series about modern gay life, marks Russell T Davies’s return to adult drama. Banana is E4’s companion piece, riffing on Cucumber’s themes. Tofu is a series of online documentaries on the same subject. If it can avoid the stench of corporate synergy, this could be very good indeed. Channel 4

139) Togetherness
Indie circuit favourites the Duplass brothers (Transparent, Safety Not Guaranteed and Jeff, Who Lives at Home) have created their first series, a “tragically comic” eight-parter for HBO. Set on the fringes of Los Angeles, it follows unhappy couple Brett and Michelle, played by Mark Duplass and Melanie Lynskey, whose life becomes more dysfunctional when Brett’s friend (Steve Zissiz) and Michelle’s sister (Amanda Peet) move in with them. Sky Atlantic.

140) Bloodline
Though it’s heavily trailing historical drama Marco Polo, Bloodline looks as if it will be the next original Netflix commission to make a splash. Friday Night Lights’ Kyle Chandler stars with Sissy Spacek and Sam Shepard in the Florida Keys-set drama, which promises a noirish exploration of family secrets following the return of a black-sheep son. Netflix

BOOKS

141) The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel J Levitin
Turning to non-fiction, in the book we’ll all be needing as we grapple with our Christmas haul of novelty gadgets, the neuroscientist uses the latest brain science to demonstrate why some people are better than others at handling the unprecedented deluge of data in the modern world, and explaining how even the klutziest of us can follow their example. Published by Viking, January – all dates UK only.

142) A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
The Pulitzer prize-winning author and peerless observer of domestic life returns with a novel spanning three generations of the Whitshank family, from the sunny afternoon in 1959 when Abby and Red fell in love, to the day their their children and grandchildren gather to decide how to look after them in their old age. Chatto & Windus, February.

143) How Good We Can Be … by Will Hutton
Twenty years after his politically influential The State We’re in, Hutton returns to investigate the state of the nation and finds it in worse health than he could have predicted. He analyses the challenges posed by growing inequality and shrinking opportunity in an attempt to come up with a formula for making things better. Little, Brown, February.

144) Girls Will Be Girls by Emer O’Toole
The blogger and columnist, who is emerging as one of the leading lights of the new feminism, uses anecdotes from her own life – from “cross-dressing to pube-growing and full-body waxing” – to illuminate some of the the dos and don’ts for women trying to set themself free from gender stereotypes. Orion, February.

145) Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage by Oliver Kamm
In a refreshing counterblast to the sticklers who have taken over the grammar debate, this self-professed “reformed pedant” celebrates the elasticity of the English language and demonstrates how, far from spoiling literature, improper usage has enriched it over the centuries. Weidenfeld, February.

146) Second Life by SJ Watson
A second psychological thriller from the author of Before I Go to Sleep, which was the slow-burning hit of 2011. Again Watson centres on a female protagonist, this time a mother living two lives – one of domestic contentment as herself, the other surfing on a dangerous obsession as she impersonates her murdered sister. Transworld, February.

147) The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
In the wilderness years after the death of King Arthur, an elderly husband and wife set off for their son’s village across a land riven with suspicion and tribal feuding. Along the way they encounter monsters, ogres, corrupt monks and an elderly knight still pursuing the Arthurian dream through the ruins of civilisation. Faber, March.

148) Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle Book 4, by Karl Ove Knausgaard
The man hailed as “Norway’s Proust” continues his fictionalised autopsy of his own life with a look at his teenage self. In book 4, translated by Don Bartlett, he takes refuge from a dysfunctional family in a remote fisherman’s cottage, looks back on his conquests and failures, and discovers that early acclaim doesn’t necessarily guarantee a stable writing career. Harvill Secker, March.

149) Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane
The award-winning nature writer uses his decade of travels from the northern tip of Scotland to the southern toe of Cornwall as a springboard for an exploration of the relationship between landscape and language, exploring the literature of place and revealing the “word hoard” he has accumulated along the way. Hamish Hamilton, March.

150) The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall
Since her striking 2002 debut Haweswater, Hall has got better with each of her four novels and last year carried off the BBC short story award. Her latest novel, set against a background of Scottish independence, land reform and power struggles, investigates the nature of wilderness and wildness, both animal and human. Faber, April.

Selections by Claire Armitstead, Henry Barnes, Ben Beaumont-Thomas, Peter Bradshaw, Xan Brooks, Jason Farago, Lyn Gardner, Nancy Groves, Michael Hann, Stuart Heritage, Jonathan Jones, Tim Jonze, Mark Lawson, Brian Logan, Judith Mackrell, Alex Needham, Rebecca Nicholson, Sean O’Hagan, Alexis Petridis, Andrew Pulver, Adrian Searle, Catherine Shoard, Oliver Wainwright