The new Fast & Furious film reunites Hobbs & Shaw, the characters played by Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham.
As expected with each release from this franchise, it’s extremely fun and complete nonsense – and even won over our critic Clarisse Loughrey, whose review you can read here.
The film has plenty of surprises in store in the form of several cameos and one moment that sees the action film take aim at the Game of Thrones finale.
*Spoilers below – you have been warned*
Now, we’re not going to reveal the biggest cameo here, but an extremely recognisable figure shows up early on in the film and returns again for a mid and post-credits sequence.
This character – who goes by the name of Locke – is clearly a disappointed Game of Thrones fan.
After seeing him having a conversation with Hobbs’ daughter about the HBO show, we later see him angrily criticising the way the show ended – specifically how Jon Snow (Kit Harington) had sex with his auntie, Daenerys Targaryen, (Emilia Clarke) and then ended up killing her.
1/26 Gloria Bell
“Gloria Bell is somewhat exhausting – both unbearably intimate and at a constant remove – but it is endlessly pulled back into focus by Moore, who has a firm understanding of the delicate balance between contentment and yearning, joy and pain, recklessness and spontaneity. In a remake that could have felt indulgent in the hands of people less skilled, she more than justifies its existence.”
Geoffrey Macnab
Curzon
2/26 Late Night
“Late Night is a caustic satirical comedy that turns into an unlikely tearjerker. It’s by turns snide and uplifting, and often very funny too. Its writer/producer/star Mindy Kaling makes vicious observations about the inanity, narcissism and corruption of the mainstream US media at the same time as she celebrates the professionalism of many of those who work within it.
The film has a glorious performance from Emma Thompson and a very sly one from Kaling. Thompson is at her most imperious as Katherine Newbury, a legendary entertainer, the only female in a male-dominated field, but one whose career is beginning to slide.”
Geoffrey Macnab
Amazon Studios
3/26 Booksmart
“Olivia Wilde is a visually inventive director, who keeps the tempo here so brisk that we hardly notice how glib the storytelling sometimes becomes. We can tell exactly how the film will end, but it still feels original both in its screwball energy and in the deft way it continually reverses stereotypes and gender clichés.”
Geoffrey Macnab
Annapurna Pictures
4/26 The Favourite
“Macabre and fraught though The Favourite gets, this isn’t so much a film about sex or power as it is about plain mischief. It’s a hilarious, buffoonish pleasure, right down to the sets and costume design, and a breeze to spend 120 minutes with.” Christopher Hooton
Fox Searchlight Pictures
5/26 Beautiful Boy
“Casting Chalamet as Nic was a very clever move. The young actor from Call Me by Your Name and Lady Bird has a natural charm and charisma. He still engages an audience’s curiosity and sympathy even when his behaviour is at its most selfish and erratic.” Geoffrey Macnab
Amazon Studios
6/26 The House by the Sea
“Guédiguian’s storytelling style is deceptive. At first, it seems as if this is low-key social realism in the Dardennes or Ken Loach mould, albeit set on the French Riviera. Gradually, though, we realise how stylised and theatrical his approach really is.” Geoffrey Macnab
7/26 Stan & Ollie
“Director Jon S Baird, whose previous film was scabrous Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth, wrings every last drop of pathos he can from his material. This is very much a case of the tears of the clowns.” Geoffrey Macnab
Entertainment One
8/26 Vice
“Vice is bravura storytelling. McKay isn’t only taking us through Cheney’s life and career but is giving us a whistle stop tour through US politics from the Nixon administration almost right to the present day.” Geoffrey Macnab
Annapurna Pictures
9/26 Can You Ever Forgive Me?
“Playing Lee Israel, McCarthy manages something very special: she makes a character who is odd, obnoxious, difficult and alcoholic seem lovable and even heroic. The rest of the world is at fault, not Lee.” Geoffrey Macnab
Fox Searchlight Pictures
10/26 Green Book
“Green Book flatters the audience about its own good sense and tolerance. It deals with racism and homophobia but still has a fairytale, fantasy feel to it. Whatever humiliations Don endures on their road trip, we know no real harm will ever come to him as long as Tony is at his side.” Geoffrey Macnab
Universal Pictures
11/26 Velvet Buzzsaw
“The golden age of bonkers horror movies is gloriously evoked by Netflix’s latest feature length presentation. Beginning as a satire of the arts world, Velvet Buzzsaw swiftly and gleefully descends into a savage splatter-fest, smeared in paint, viscera and garishly-bright blood.” Ed Power
Netflix
12/26 If Beale Street Could Talk
“The setting is New York in the 1970s. Anyone who has watched Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver knows this was an era of violence, corruption and sleaze on a monumental level, but [Barry] Jenkins somehow makes the city seem like a modern-day Eden.” Geoffrey Macnab
Annapurna Pictures
13/26 All Is True
“Written by Ben Elton and directed by its star Kenneth Branagh, the film plays so fast and loose with the playwright’s final years that they needn’t have bothered fitting Branagh with a prosthetic nose – accuracy is clearly not the priority here.” Alexandra Pollard
Sony Pictures Classics
14/26 The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is the doomed progeny of a celebrated genius – brilliant but slightly stunted by the knowledge they will never live up to their predecessor.” Clarisse Loughrey
Warner Bros. Pictures
15/26 Piercing
“Nicolas Pesce’s sleek and stylish horror comedy is repulsive and funny by turns. In adapting Ryu Murakami’s cult novel, Pesce strikes just the right balance between humour and Grand Guignol-style shock tactics.” Geoffrey Macnab
Universal Pictures
16/26 Capernaum
“The best moments here are remarkable. Labaki elicits an astonishing performance from her young lead. He’s an irrepressible figure with such an inbuilt sense of moral decency the film seems upbeat and optimistic, even at its darkest moments.” Geoffrey Macnab
Sony Pictures Classics
17/26 The White Crow
“Ralph Fiennes combines thriller elements with poetic flashbacks to ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev’s childhood and keeps a tight focus on the dancer. When he is most at risk, Nureyev makes decisions with his artistic future more in mind than his personal safety. As Fiennes reminds us again and again in what is his best film yet as a director, the ‘white crow’ will do anything to put himself in the limelight, the one place he is convinced he belongs.”
StudioCanal
18/26 Border
“Border reverses the perspective taken by most other horror films. In more conventional genre fare, Tina and Vore would be portrayed as malevolent outsiders, but in the world conjured up by director Ali Abbasi, the humans are the monsters. Tina is the innocent – a visionary who hardly understands her own powers but who can sense human venality and corruption wherever it appears.”
TriArt Film
19/26 Fighting with My Family
“Certain scenes feel very trite and predictable but the film gets you in a choke hold early on and won’t let you go. It is far more gripping than its subject matter might suggest. Who ever would believe a story about a wrestling family from Norwich could have quite such heart and resonance?”
James Field
20/26 Us
“Doppelgangers abound in Jordan Peele’s weird, creepy and ingenious new horror film. As in his Oscar-winning 2017 feature Get Out, Peele leavens matters with ironic humour but the joking becomes increasingly uncomfortable once the main characters come face to face with dark shadows of themselves which wish them extreme harm.”
AP
21/26 Avengers: Endgame
“The Avengers cycle comes to a rich and very satisfying conclusion with Endgame, surely the most complex and emotional superhero movie in Marvel history. At 181 minutes, this is a veritable epic, but with so many characters and plot strands, it fully warrants its lengthy running time.”
AP
22/26 Eighth Grade
“It’s a rare and precious feeling when a film completely dismantles you. Eighth Grade – the directorial debut of US comedian Bo Burnham – breaks down every delusion we have about ourselves and burrows deep into those parts we’ve made such an effort to lock away. You may cry. You may shudder as every awkward social interaction that’s kept you up at night replays in your head all at once. You may feel the sharp pain associated with those moments when you feel completely isolated from the world. Burnham may have crafted a simple story about the most ordinary of teenage girls, but it speaks with the emotions of a true cinematic epic.”
A24
23/26 Vox Lux
“Natalie Portman gives her fiercest, most memorable performance since Black Swan in Brady Corbet’s enjoyably subversive satire about a troubled pop star whose loss of innocence mirrors the fall from grace of the US itself. Portman’s character, Celeste, is certainly one of the most objectionable figures she has played: a pampered, hard-drinking drug-taking “floozy” whose appearance and high-handed behaviour rekindle memories of Liz Taylor and Joan Crawford at their monstrous worst.”
Neon
24/26 High Life
Robert Pattinson gives one of his most striking performances as Monte, the death-row criminal in outer space, tricked into making a voyage described at one stage as a “class-one suicide ride”. The former Twilight star makes his shaven-headed, gaunt-faced character seem hyper naturally sensitive and feral at the same time.
A24
25/26 Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace is as uplifting a film as you will see all year. It’s a concert movie filmed over two nights and featuring Aretha Franklin, the “first lady of soul”, performing gospel standards in a church in Los Angeles in 1972, with a huge backing choir and an enthusiastic congregation.
Neon
26/26 Aladdin
Disney’s live-action remake of its 1992 animated feature is a rip-roaring, old-fashioned matinee-style spectacle that turns out far better than we had any right to expect.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
1/26 Gloria Bell
“Gloria Bell is somewhat exhausting – both unbearably intimate and at a constant remove – but it is endlessly pulled back into focus by Moore, who has a firm understanding of the delicate balance between contentment and yearning, joy and pain, recklessness and spontaneity. In a remake that could have felt indulgent in the hands of people less skilled, she more than justifies its existence.”
Geoffrey Macnab
Curzon
2/26 Late Night
“Late Night is a caustic satirical comedy that turns into an unlikely tearjerker. It’s by turns snide and uplifting, and often very funny too. Its writer/producer/star Mindy Kaling makes vicious observations about the inanity, narcissism and corruption of the mainstream US media at the same time as she celebrates the professionalism of many of those who work within it.
The film has a glorious performance from Emma Thompson and a very sly one from Kaling. Thompson is at her most imperious as Katherine Newbury, a legendary entertainer, the only female in a male-dominated field, but one whose career is beginning to slide.”
Geoffrey Macnab
Amazon Studios
3/26 Booksmart
“Olivia Wilde is a visually inventive director, who keeps the tempo here so brisk that we hardly notice how glib the storytelling sometimes becomes. We can tell exactly how the film will end, but it still feels original both in its screwball energy and in the deft way it continually reverses stereotypes and gender clichés.”
Geoffrey Macnab
Annapurna Pictures
4/26 The Favourite
“Macabre and fraught though The Favourite gets, this isn’t so much a film about sex or power as it is about plain mischief. It’s a hilarious, buffoonish pleasure, right down to the sets and costume design, and a breeze to spend 120 minutes with.” Christopher Hooton
Fox Searchlight Pictures
5/26 Beautiful Boy
“Casting Chalamet as Nic was a very clever move. The young actor from Call Me by Your Name and Lady Bird has a natural charm and charisma. He still engages an audience’s curiosity and sympathy even when his behaviour is at its most selfish and erratic.” Geoffrey Macnab
Amazon Studios
6/26 The House by the Sea
“Guédiguian’s storytelling style is deceptive. At first, it seems as if this is low-key social realism in the Dardennes or Ken Loach mould, albeit set on the French Riviera. Gradually, though, we realise how stylised and theatrical his approach really is.” Geoffrey Macnab
7/26 Stan & Ollie
“Director Jon S Baird, whose previous film was scabrous Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth, wrings every last drop of pathos he can from his material. This is very much a case of the tears of the clowns.” Geoffrey Macnab
Entertainment One
8/26 Vice
“Vice is bravura storytelling. McKay isn’t only taking us through Cheney’s life and career but is giving us a whistle stop tour through US politics from the Nixon administration almost right to the present day.” Geoffrey Macnab
Annapurna Pictures
9/26 Can You Ever Forgive Me?
“Playing Lee Israel, McCarthy manages something very special: she makes a character who is odd, obnoxious, difficult and alcoholic seem lovable and even heroic. The rest of the world is at fault, not Lee.” Geoffrey Macnab
Fox Searchlight Pictures
10/26 Green Book
“Green Book flatters the audience about its own good sense and tolerance. It deals with racism and homophobia but still has a fairytale, fantasy feel to it. Whatever humiliations Don endures on their road trip, we know no real harm will ever come to him as long as Tony is at his side.” Geoffrey Macnab
Universal Pictures
11/26 Velvet Buzzsaw
“The golden age of bonkers horror movies is gloriously evoked by Netflix’s latest feature length presentation. Beginning as a satire of the arts world, Velvet Buzzsaw swiftly and gleefully descends into a savage splatter-fest, smeared in paint, viscera and garishly-bright blood.” Ed Power
Netflix
12/26 If Beale Street Could Talk
“The setting is New York in the 1970s. Anyone who has watched Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver knows this was an era of violence, corruption and sleaze on a monumental level, but [Barry] Jenkins somehow makes the city seem like a modern-day Eden.” Geoffrey Macnab
Annapurna Pictures
13/26 All Is True
“Written by Ben Elton and directed by its star Kenneth Branagh, the film plays so fast and loose with the playwright’s final years that they needn’t have bothered fitting Branagh with a prosthetic nose – accuracy is clearly not the priority here.” Alexandra Pollard
Sony Pictures Classics
14/26 The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part is the doomed progeny of a celebrated genius – brilliant but slightly stunted by the knowledge they will never live up to their predecessor.” Clarisse Loughrey
Warner Bros. Pictures
15/26 Piercing
“Nicolas Pesce’s sleek and stylish horror comedy is repulsive and funny by turns. In adapting Ryu Murakami’s cult novel, Pesce strikes just the right balance between humour and Grand Guignol-style shock tactics.” Geoffrey Macnab
Universal Pictures
16/26 Capernaum
“The best moments here are remarkable. Labaki elicits an astonishing performance from her young lead. He’s an irrepressible figure with such an inbuilt sense of moral decency the film seems upbeat and optimistic, even at its darkest moments.” Geoffrey Macnab
Sony Pictures Classics
17/26 The White Crow
“Ralph Fiennes combines thriller elements with poetic flashbacks to ballet legend Rudolf Nureyev’s childhood and keeps a tight focus on the dancer. When he is most at risk, Nureyev makes decisions with his artistic future more in mind than his personal safety. As Fiennes reminds us again and again in what is his best film yet as a director, the ‘white crow’ will do anything to put himself in the limelight, the one place he is convinced he belongs.”
StudioCanal
18/26 Border
“Border reverses the perspective taken by most other horror films. In more conventional genre fare, Tina and Vore would be portrayed as malevolent outsiders, but in the world conjured up by director Ali Abbasi, the humans are the monsters. Tina is the innocent – a visionary who hardly understands her own powers but who can sense human venality and corruption wherever it appears.”
TriArt Film
19/26 Fighting with My Family
“Certain scenes feel very trite and predictable but the film gets you in a choke hold early on and won’t let you go. It is far more gripping than its subject matter might suggest. Who ever would believe a story about a wrestling family from Norwich could have quite such heart and resonance?”
James Field
20/26 Us
“Doppelgangers abound in Jordan Peele’s weird, creepy and ingenious new horror film. As in his Oscar-winning 2017 feature Get Out, Peele leavens matters with ironic humour but the joking becomes increasingly uncomfortable once the main characters come face to face with dark shadows of themselves which wish them extreme harm.”
AP
21/26 Avengers: Endgame
“The Avengers cycle comes to a rich and very satisfying conclusion with Endgame, surely the most complex and emotional superhero movie in Marvel history. At 181 minutes, this is a veritable epic, but with so many characters and plot strands, it fully warrants its lengthy running time.”
AP
22/26 Eighth Grade
“It’s a rare and precious feeling when a film completely dismantles you. Eighth Grade – the directorial debut of US comedian Bo Burnham – breaks down every delusion we have about ourselves and burrows deep into those parts we’ve made such an effort to lock away. You may cry. You may shudder as every awkward social interaction that’s kept you up at night replays in your head all at once. You may feel the sharp pain associated with those moments when you feel completely isolated from the world. Burnham may have crafted a simple story about the most ordinary of teenage girls, but it speaks with the emotions of a true cinematic epic.”
A24
23/26 Vox Lux
“Natalie Portman gives her fiercest, most memorable performance since Black Swan in Brady Corbet’s enjoyably subversive satire about a troubled pop star whose loss of innocence mirrors the fall from grace of the US itself. Portman’s character, Celeste, is certainly one of the most objectionable figures she has played: a pampered, hard-drinking drug-taking “floozy” whose appearance and high-handed behaviour rekindle memories of Liz Taylor and Joan Crawford at their monstrous worst.”
Neon
24/26 High Life
Robert Pattinson gives one of his most striking performances as Monte, the death-row criminal in outer space, tricked into making a voyage described at one stage as a “class-one suicide ride”. The former Twilight star makes his shaven-headed, gaunt-faced character seem hyper naturally sensitive and feral at the same time.
A24
25/26 Amazing Grace
Amazing Grace is as uplifting a film as you will see all year. It’s a concert movie filmed over two nights and featuring Aretha Franklin, the “first lady of soul”, performing gospel standards in a church in Los Angeles in 1972, with a huge backing choir and an enthusiastic congregation.
Neon
26/26 Aladdin
Disney’s live-action remake of its 1992 animated feature is a rip-roaring, old-fashioned matinee-style spectacle that turns out far better than we had any right to expect.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
It’s a bold move to include such a direct reference to something that’s actually not so much a part of the cultural conversation anymore.
It may have seemed like a fun idea when the fantasy series broadcast its controversial finale back in May, but it’s something that’s clearly going to date the film in years to come.
The film isn’t the only one to criticise how the show ended. At Comic-Con last month, Seth Rogen also poked fun at the final season that, days earlier, had been defended by its stars during a panel.
You can find a ranking of every single episode below and a ranking of every character – from worst to best – here.
1/73 73. Season seven, episode five: Eastwatch
There has to be a loser. ‘Eastwatch’ throws away one of the most important pieces of information in the whole show, Jon’s true parentage, as well as lots of good reunions. It’s the clearest example of how rushed the show has become in recent years, as its unpredictability gives way to conventional plot.
HBO
2/73 72. Season four, episode three: Breaker of Chains
Jaime appears to rape Cersei next to Joffrey’s corpse. The scene is confused, unpleasant and different from the books in confusing and unhelpful ways.
HBO
3/73 71. Season five, episode six: Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken
The Sand Snakes are just unbearably naff and this is one of their worst.
HBO
4/73 70. Season four, episode four: Oathkeeper
At Craster’s Keep, much rape and murder of children. Unpleasant.
HBO
5/73 69. Season one, episode two: The Kingsroad
The opposite of the rushed plot of the later seasons, this is basically a leisurely chat up the M1.
HBO
6/73 68. Season eight, episode four: The Last of the Starks
Given a chance to return to real intrigue after the Battle of Winterfell, Benioff and Weiss showed they had lost their grip, with an incoherent episode that betrayed several key characters for the sake of obvious plot grinding. A Starbucks cup left on a feasting table told us everything we needed to know about a series that has given up.
HBO
7/73 67. Season two, episode eight: Prince of Winterfell
There is some good stuff with Arya and Jaqen H’ghar, but it’s mainly placeholder as they set up the Battle of Blackwater.
HBO
8/73 66. Season three, episode 10: Mysha
Jon Snow and Ygritte’s goodbye at the climax of season three ought to have been much sadder.
HBO
9/73 65. Season five, episode two: The House of Black and White
Lots of setting up. Jaime and Bronn plan to go to Dorne, Arya arrives in Braavos.
HBO
10/73 64. Season seven, episode six: Beyond the Wall
This ought to have been one of the great battles: ice zombies plus dragons plus Jon Snow’s expedition. It looked spectacular, but everyone worried about teleporting ravens and speed of sound dragons.
HBO
11/73 63. Season six, episode eight: No One
Some absolutely horrible banter between Grey Worm and Missandei.
HBO
12/73 62. Season two, episode seven: A Man Without Honour
Pyat Pree kills the 13 in Qarth. Tywin talks to Arya about legacy.
HBO
13/73 61. Season six, episode one: The Red Woman
Melisandre is a very, very old woman.
HBO
14/73 60. Season two, episode two: The Night Lands
Lots of Tyrion talking in King’s Landing but not much else.
HBO
15/73 59. Season six, episode seven: The Broken Man
The Hound meets Ian McShane. That’s about it in an episode full of preparations.
HBO
16/73 58. Season three, episode one: Valar Dohaeris
A classic season opener that flits from place to place.
HBO
17/73 57. Season two, episode four: Garden of Bones
Lots of grimness. Rat and bucket torture at Harrenhal. Robb Stark meets Talisa. Joffrey is cruel to Ros and Daisy.
HBO
18/73 56. Season five, episode one: The Wars to Come
Mance Rayder refuses to bend the knee, is burned at the stake by Stannis before Jon shoots him with an arrow. A pretty good death actually.
HBO
19/73 55. Season five, episode five: Kill the Boy
Season five is perhaps the weakest, and this is one of the weakest episodes in it, despite some good Bolton action and the Stone Men’s fateful attack on Tyrion and Jorah Mormont as they sailed through Valyria.
HBO
20/73 54. Season two, episode one: The North Remembers
In the season two opener we meet Stannis at Dragonstone, and then Joffrey orders a tremendous infanticide. It was vaguely controversial at the time. Feels like a lifetime ago. ‘Power is power,’ Cersei tells Littlefinger, which was good.
HBO
21/73 53. Season six, episode three: Oathbreaker
Jon Snow coming back to life really shouldn’t have felt flat. Yet it did.
HBO
22/73 52. Season one, episode three: Lord Snow
Understandable given that it had to build an entire medieval universe, but 12 major characters are introduced here. That’s too many major characters.
HBO
23/73 51. Season six, epsidoe four: Book of the Stranger
Jon and Sansa reunite, which is cool, Daenerys burns some more enemies, which is hot, good High Sparrow monologue to Margaery.
HBO
24/73 50. Season three, episode six: The Climb
Theme of climbing. Thormund makes his way up the Wall; Littlefinger gives his most famous monologue, as he explains to Varys that chaos is ‘a ladder’.
HBO
25/73 49. Season five, episode two: Sons of the Harpy
Mid-season doldrums, particularly acute in five, as Jaime and Bronn arrive in Dorne.
HBO
26/73 48. Season five, episode seven: The Gift
The same, basically, except for Tyrion meeting Daenerys. Everyone gives each other presents.
HBO
27/73 47. Season three, episode two: Dark Wings, Dark Words
Sluggish early-season number, although we meet Olenna and Margaery shows how skilful she will be at manipulating court.
HBO
28/73 46. Season one, episode eight: The Pointy End
Until the later series, eight episodes are a bit hamstrung by setting up denouements to follow. This is true in season one, as the machinery creaks to set up the beheading they didn’t think could happen.
HBO
29/73 45. Season three, episode seven: The Bear and the Maiden Fair
Even re-looking at what happened in this episode I still can’t really remember it, except for the fight with the bear. Oh yes, Mackenzie Crook! Forgot he was in this programme.
HBO
30/73 44. Season two, episode five: The Ghost of Harrenhal
Two good moments: Renly is killed by the shadow, and Arya meets Jaqen H’ghar.
HBO
31/73 43. Season eight, episode two: ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’
Another slow scene setter for the epic Battle of Winterfell, full of night-before antics including the knighting of Brienne by Jamie, and the slightly disturbing sight of Arya and Gendry preparing to go at it hammer and tongs.
HBO
32/73 42. Season six, episode two: Home
The demise of top lad Roose Bolton, as well as Balon Greyjoy, both sent to their ends by their families. Melisandre finally works her anti-death magic on Jon Snow.
HBO
33/73 41. Season four, episode five: First of His Name
One of the good things about season four was that it was the only moment where, even briefly, it looked as though a kind of temporary stability had been achieved. Tommen is king, Sansa has escaped King’s Landing, Jon Snow and co get revenge on the mutineers at Craster’s Keep.
HBO
34/73 40. Season two, episode 10: Valar Morghulis
The White Walkers attacking the Night’s Watch at the Fist of the First Men is a good laugh, but other than that there is a lot to get through, after the events of Blackwater in the previous episode, and the season two finale anticipates some of the rushed feeling that will occur later on.
HBO
35/73 39. Season one, episode seven: You Win or You Die
Our first real glimpse of what Cersei will become, as she outmanoeuvres Ned Stark after Robert Baratheon’s death in a hunting accident.
HBO
36/73 38. Season seven, episode one: Dragonstone
A superb Arya moment, as she wipes out the rest of House Frey, but mainly this is set-up for a season that packs a lot in.
HBO
37/73 37. Season one, episode four: Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
Ned working as policeman in Kings Landing to find out what happened to Jon Arryn.
HBO
38/73 36. Season five, episode nine: Dance of Dragons
One of the most upsetting deaths in Game of Thrones, as Stannis Baratheon burns his friendly daughter Shireen alive to appease Melisandre.
HBO
39/73 35. Season seven, episode two: Stormborn
Theon jumping off the boat after Euron overruns the Greyjoy fleet. Nice reunion between Arya and Hot Pie. Tyrion talks Daenerys down from incinerating King’s Landing.
HBO
40/73 34. Season eight, episode one: ‘Winterfell’
A slower than expected opener for the final season, albeit with some touching reunions at Winterfell, especially Bran and Jamie seeing each other again.
41/73 33. Season six, episode six: Blood of My Blood
Midseasoner. Cersei sends Jaime to retake Riverrun, while Arya is finally trained as an assassin. Can’t really remember it, to be honest.
HBO
42/73 32. Season one, episode five: The Wolf and the Lion
Jaime and Ned have a brawl in the streets of King’s Landing in an episode that focuses on skulduggery rather than magic. If you ask me skulduggery always trumps magic.
HBO
43/73 31. Season three, episode three: Walk of Punishment
The first moment where a character’s trajectory was really reversed. We’d disliked Jaime since the start, but when his hand was chopped off he began to win us back. The Blackfish schooling Edmure at shooting fire arrows was another highlight.
HBO
44/73 30. Season four, episode one: Two Swords
The opening of the fourth series introduced the charismatic, enigmatic Viper of Dorne, one of the few good things other than wine to come out of Dorne. Also notable for an excellent scene with Arya and the Hound clearing out an Inn.
HBO
45/73 29. Season two, episode three: What is Dead May Never Die
Introduces Margaery Tyrell and Brienne of Tarth, two of the best characters, and also sees Theon decide to betray Robb Stark. What is family? Who can you trust?
HBO
46/73 28. Season three, episode eight: Second Sons
Built around Sansa and Tyrion’s unwelcome wedding, while in the north there is a display of how important Sam will be as he draws on reserves of bravery to dragonglass a white walker.
HBO
47/73 27. Season four, episode seven: Mockingbird
Littlefinger dumping Lysa out of the Eyrie is probably the most dramatic moment here, one of his decisive power-stealing moments as he saves Sansa.
HBO
48/73 26. Season one, episode one: Winter Is Coming
Can you remember a time before Game of Thrones? Re-watch ‘Winter is Coming’, marvel at the baby Starks, think on how many characters have died, reflect on your own mortality. You are much, much older than when Game of Thrones began. Your life is running between your fingers.
HBO
49/73 25. Season one, episode six: A Golden Crown
Another dramatic death which is hard to remember now, as the miserable Viserys was put out of his grump with molten gold.
HBO
50/73 24: Season eight, episode six: ‘The Iron Throne’
Well, that was that. The grand finale provoked much gnashing of teeth and hot air, not all of it from Drogon. In truth, things were tied up as best they could, given the way the the different pieces had been arranged, although some of the criticism was valid. The king-choosing and first council scenes were amazingly lame. A number of questions were skirted over. Still, what a spectacle.
HBO
51/73 23. Season two, episode six: Old Gods and the New
Theon takes Winterfell. Theon, you utter bastard. I hope you are punished for this.
HBO
52/73 22. Season five, episode three: High Sparrow
A key Littlefinger episode, as he continues to manipulate Sansa, while Jon Snow executes Janos and, in King’s Landing, Cersei’s machinations are matched by Margaery’s.
HBO
53/73 21. Season four, episode two: The Lion and the Rose
Joffrey, scratching at his throat, going purple, dying. Top stuff.
HBO
54/73 20. Season four, episode six: The Laws of Gods and Men
An excellent mid-season episode, built around Tyrion’s trial but with lots of other things to admire that hint at the underlying economies in the Game of Thrones universe. Drogon barbecues some livestock, while the Iron Bank of Braavos refuses to bail out Davos and Stannis.
HBO
55/73 19. Season three, episode four: And Now His Watch Is Ended
The full depravity of Ramsay Bolton is laid bare as he taunts Theon with a fake escape, while Commander Mormont is murdered at Craster’s Keep. But really it’s all about Daenerys, as she and her pets flame Astapor to the ground.
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56/73 18. Season seven, episode seven: The Dragon and the Wolf
It turns out Jon Snow is actually the true heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the remaining Stark children finally team up to kill Littlefinger, admittedly in overwrought style, and the White Walkers use their new lizard hairdryer to destroy the wall. There is far too much going on, especially the odd scene where Jon shows Cersei the wight, but nevertheless it sends you reaching for the popcorn and cheering along, which is more or less where we are at with the whole series by now.
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57/73 17. Season three, episode five: Kissed by Fire
Most notable for Ygritte and Jon’s much-parodied love grotto scene, but also for the Hound’s duel with Bendric Dondarrion, which revealed his terror of fire. Nursing his stump in the baths, Jaime tells Brienne the truth about his assassination of the Mad King. Mid-seasoner.
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58/73 16. Season five, episode 10: Mother’s Mercy
The denouement of the fifth series is the most sympathetic we ever see Cersei, as she completes her walk of atonement through the streets of King’s Landing, her hair cut and her clothes stripped. Strategically, humiliating Cersei proves not to be the masterstroke the High Sparrow thought it would be.
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59/73 15. Season seven, episode four: The Spoils of War
Spoils aplenty. Arya returns to Winterfell and sees Sansa, then fights a brief duel with Brienne that shows just how much she’s learnt. It’s nothing on one of the great shots of the whole series, however: Daenerys riding Drogon above a Dothraki horde in full charge before incinerating the Lannister lines.
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60/73 14. Season one, episode 10: Fire and Blood
We were promised dragons, and here they are, mewing atop the naked Daenerys. And one thing we know about baby dragons is they must grow up. This is Game of Thrones’ version of Chekhov’s rule about guns. You’ll keep watching until they torch something.
HBO
61/73 13. Season five, episode eight: Hardhome
As the big battles go, the showdown between the Night’s Watch and wildlings and the wights at Hardhome doesn’t quite match some of the others, but it is still dead cool, especially when Jon realises his sword works against the snowmen. If that wasn’t enough, Sansa also learnt that her family might be alive.
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62/73 12. Season four, episode nine: The Watchers on the Wall
The big set-piece between the Night’s Watch and the wildlings. Not quite up to Blackwater’s standards, despite its battle specialist Neil Marshall being summonsed back to direct.
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63/73 11. Season seven, episode three: The Queen’s Justice
There is too much crammed into this episode, which could have been spread over several hours, but it’s wonderful stuff all the same. Jon meets Daenerys for the first time, Sam cures Jorah of greyscale, Cersei obliterates the Tyrells. Best of all is Diana Rigg, at a table in her tower, bowing out from what is perhaps Thrones’ best overall performance.
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64/73 10. Season eight, episode five
One of the most divisive episodes, as Dany’s frustrations spilled over into a holocaust in King’s Landing. Whatever you thought of the pacing, or the plot’s fidelity to the characters, it was quite a spectacle, and killed off several key figures in dramatic style.
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65/73 9. Season six, episode five: The Door
Poor old Hodor. The death nobody wanted, as a wonderful character, played so sympathetically by Kristian Nairn, is finally given his due.
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66/73 8. Season four, episode eight: The Mountain and the Viper
Other things happen: Littlefinger takes over the Vale, and the Boltons move into Winterfell, but the episode is mainly memorable for the central duel, as Oberyn seeks justice from the man who murdered so many of his relatives, and for one image above all, of the Mountain’s armoured fingers crushing Oberyn’s skull like a grapefruit.
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67/73 7. Season one, episode nine: Baelor
Poor old Ned Stark. The death they said could never happen! Clearly they had not watched enough Sean Bean films.
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68/73 6. Season eight, episode three: The Long Night
After two scene-setting episodes, The Long Night finally delivers on the promise of season eight, with 90 minutes of marvellous blood and fire at Winterfell. The Night King’s hordes meet the assembled ranks of Westeros, wildlings, Dothraki and Unsullied. The defenders lose and lose and lose until they finally win, although not before a few spectacular deaths. If it lacks some of the strategic nuance of other battles, it compensates with stunning action sequences and CGI, especially on the dragons, who dogfight high above the plain.
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69/73 5. Season six, episode 10: The Winds of Winter
Winter has come. It opens with peak Cersei, as she eliminates all her remaining enemies in one enormous blaze. Arya kills Walder Frey. The Jon Theory is confirmed. Tommen walks out of the window.
HBO
70/73 4. Season three, episode nine: Rains of Castemere
The Lannisters send their regards. Some would have this number one, and one could easily make the case. The Red Wedding was the scene that broke Game of Thrones out of its fandom and into broader popular culture, the point where it was no longer avoidable. Fury, anguish, love, surprise, pity, hate: it’s all here. The look Roose Bolton gives Catelyn Stark when she reveals the chainmail he is wearing to dinner might be my single favourite moment of the whole programme.
HBO
71/73 3. Season six, episode nine: Battle of the Bastards
Anyone who has seen Mel Gibson’s Mayan drama Apocalypto knows that running in a straight line away from arrows rarely works. So it proved for Rickon, setting up one of the great battles not only on TV but on any kind of film. Where in previous seasons battles had occasionally felt hampered by budget, most egregiously when Tyrion was knocked out and missed the whole thing, this was the full belt and braces. It was brilliantly directed, with aerial shots, as well as face-in-the-mud close-ups to convey the full grinding horror of the battle, and the grim relief of victory.
HBO
72/73 2. Season four, episode 10: The Children
The fourth season is the best all-round, I think, the high-point of character development before it started to be forced by the machinations of the plot in the later series. Brienne’s bloody brawl with the Hound leaves him bleeding and broken, as Arya heads off to Braavos. Tywin finally gets his comeuppance, a crossbow bolt on the loo, administered by his son, Tyrion, who then flees. And Stannis’s cavalry arrives to save Jon and defeat Mance Rayder and the wildlings in a pincer movement, having been persuaded by Davos.
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73/73 1. Season two, episode nine: Blackwater
This is purely a personal view, but if Ned Stark’s death was the moment you sat up and paid attention, Blackwater was the where you started cheering at the TV. The scale, the splendour, the depth of character brought to bear on grand events: they all felt new, somehow. This might have been the last moment where we were equally rooting for both sides, except for one side to be consumed in an eerie green glow. Wildfire doesn’t care who your favourite character is.
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1/73 73. Season seven, episode five: Eastwatch
There has to be a loser. ‘Eastwatch’ throws away one of the most important pieces of information in the whole show, Jon’s true parentage, as well as lots of good reunions. It’s the clearest example of how rushed the show has become in recent years, as its unpredictability gives way to conventional plot.
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2/73 72. Season four, episode three: Breaker of Chains
Jaime appears to rape Cersei next to Joffrey’s corpse. The scene is confused, unpleasant and different from the books in confusing and unhelpful ways.
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3/73 71. Season five, episode six: Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken
The Sand Snakes are just unbearably naff and this is one of their worst.
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4/73 70. Season four, episode four: Oathkeeper
At Craster’s Keep, much rape and murder of children. Unpleasant.
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5/73 69. Season one, episode two: The Kingsroad
The opposite of the rushed plot of the later seasons, this is basically a leisurely chat up the M1.
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6/73 68. Season eight, episode four: The Last of the Starks
Given a chance to return to real intrigue after the Battle of Winterfell, Benioff and Weiss showed they had lost their grip, with an incoherent episode that betrayed several key characters for the sake of obvious plot grinding. A Starbucks cup left on a feasting table told us everything we needed to know about a series that has given up.
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7/73 67. Season two, episode eight: Prince of Winterfell
There is some good stuff with Arya and Jaqen H’ghar, but it’s mainly placeholder as they set up the Battle of Blackwater.
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8/73 66. Season three, episode 10: Mysha
Jon Snow and Ygritte’s goodbye at the climax of season three ought to have been much sadder.
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9/73 65. Season five, episode two: The House of Black and White
Lots of setting up. Jaime and Bronn plan to go to Dorne, Arya arrives in Braavos.
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10/73 64. Season seven, episode six: Beyond the Wall
This ought to have been one of the great battles: ice zombies plus dragons plus Jon Snow’s expedition. It looked spectacular, but everyone worried about teleporting ravens and speed of sound dragons.
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11/73 63. Season six, episode eight: No One
Some absolutely horrible banter between Grey Worm and Missandei.
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12/73 62. Season two, episode seven: A Man Without Honour
Pyat Pree kills the 13 in Qarth. Tywin talks to Arya about legacy.
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13/73 61. Season six, episode one: The Red Woman
Melisandre is a very, very old woman.
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14/73 60. Season two, episode two: The Night Lands
Lots of Tyrion talking in King’s Landing but not much else.
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15/73 59. Season six, episode seven: The Broken Man
The Hound meets Ian McShane. That’s about it in an episode full of preparations.
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16/73 58. Season three, episode one: Valar Dohaeris
A classic season opener that flits from place to place.
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17/73 57. Season two, episode four: Garden of Bones
Lots of grimness. Rat and bucket torture at Harrenhal. Robb Stark meets Talisa. Joffrey is cruel to Ros and Daisy.
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18/73 56. Season five, episode one: The Wars to Come
Mance Rayder refuses to bend the knee, is burned at the stake by Stannis before Jon shoots him with an arrow. A pretty good death actually.
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19/73 55. Season five, episode five: Kill the Boy
Season five is perhaps the weakest, and this is one of the weakest episodes in it, despite some good Bolton action and the Stone Men’s fateful attack on Tyrion and Jorah Mormont as they sailed through Valyria.
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20/73 54. Season two, episode one: The North Remembers
In the season two opener we meet Stannis at Dragonstone, and then Joffrey orders a tremendous infanticide. It was vaguely controversial at the time. Feels like a lifetime ago. ‘Power is power,’ Cersei tells Littlefinger, which was good.
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21/73 53. Season six, episode three: Oathbreaker
Jon Snow coming back to life really shouldn’t have felt flat. Yet it did.
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22/73 52. Season one, episode three: Lord Snow
Understandable given that it had to build an entire medieval universe, but 12 major characters are introduced here. That’s too many major characters.
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23/73 51. Season six, epsidoe four: Book of the Stranger
Jon and Sansa reunite, which is cool, Daenerys burns some more enemies, which is hot, good High Sparrow monologue to Margaery.
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24/73 50. Season three, episode six: The Climb
Theme of climbing. Thormund makes his way up the Wall; Littlefinger gives his most famous monologue, as he explains to Varys that chaos is ‘a ladder’.
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25/73 49. Season five, episode two: Sons of the Harpy
Mid-season doldrums, particularly acute in five, as Jaime and Bronn arrive in Dorne.
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26/73 48. Season five, episode seven: The Gift
The same, basically, except for Tyrion meeting Daenerys. Everyone gives each other presents.
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27/73 47. Season three, episode two: Dark Wings, Dark Words
Sluggish early-season number, although we meet Olenna and Margaery shows how skilful she will be at manipulating court.
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28/73 46. Season one, episode eight: The Pointy End
Until the later series, eight episodes are a bit hamstrung by setting up denouements to follow. This is true in season one, as the machinery creaks to set up the beheading they didn’t think could happen.
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29/73 45. Season three, episode seven: The Bear and the Maiden Fair
Even re-looking at what happened in this episode I still can’t really remember it, except for the fight with the bear. Oh yes, Mackenzie Crook! Forgot he was in this programme.
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30/73 44. Season two, episode five: The Ghost of Harrenhal
Two good moments: Renly is killed by the shadow, and Arya meets Jaqen H’ghar.
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31/73 43. Season eight, episode two: ‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’
Another slow scene setter for the epic Battle of Winterfell, full of night-before antics including the knighting of Brienne by Jamie, and the slightly disturbing sight of Arya and Gendry preparing to go at it hammer and tongs.
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32/73 42. Season six, episode two: Home
The demise of top lad Roose Bolton, as well as Balon Greyjoy, both sent to their ends by their families. Melisandre finally works her anti-death magic on Jon Snow.
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33/73 41. Season four, episode five: First of His Name
One of the good things about season four was that it was the only moment where, even briefly, it looked as though a kind of temporary stability had been achieved. Tommen is king, Sansa has escaped King’s Landing, Jon Snow and co get revenge on the mutineers at Craster’s Keep.
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34/73 40. Season two, episode 10: Valar Morghulis
The White Walkers attacking the Night’s Watch at the Fist of the First Men is a good laugh, but other than that there is a lot to get through, after the events of Blackwater in the previous episode, and the season two finale anticipates some of the rushed feeling that will occur later on.
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35/73 39. Season one, episode seven: You Win or You Die
Our first real glimpse of what Cersei will become, as she outmanoeuvres Ned Stark after Robert Baratheon’s death in a hunting accident.
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36/73 38. Season seven, episode one: Dragonstone
A superb Arya moment, as she wipes out the rest of House Frey, but mainly this is set-up for a season that packs a lot in.
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37/73 37. Season one, episode four: Cripples, Bastards and Broken Things
Ned working as policeman in Kings Landing to find out what happened to Jon Arryn.
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38/73 36. Season five, episode nine: Dance of Dragons
One of the most upsetting deaths in Game of Thrones, as Stannis Baratheon burns his friendly daughter Shireen alive to appease Melisandre.
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39/73 35. Season seven, episode two: Stormborn
Theon jumping off the boat after Euron overruns the Greyjoy fleet. Nice reunion between Arya and Hot Pie. Tyrion talks Daenerys down from incinerating King’s Landing.
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40/73 34. Season eight, episode one: ‘Winterfell’
A slower than expected opener for the final season, albeit with some touching reunions at Winterfell, especially Bran and Jamie seeing each other again.
41/73 33. Season six, episode six: Blood of My Blood
Midseasoner. Cersei sends Jaime to retake Riverrun, while Arya is finally trained as an assassin. Can’t really remember it, to be honest.
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42/73 32. Season one, episode five: The Wolf and the Lion
Jaime and Ned have a brawl in the streets of King’s Landing in an episode that focuses on skulduggery rather than magic. If you ask me skulduggery always trumps magic.
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43/73 31. Season three, episode three: Walk of Punishment
The first moment where a character’s trajectory was really reversed. We’d disliked Jaime since the start, but when his hand was chopped off he began to win us back. The Blackfish schooling Edmure at shooting fire arrows was another highlight.
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44/73 30. Season four, episode one: Two Swords
The opening of the fourth series introduced the charismatic, enigmatic Viper of Dorne, one of the few good things other than wine to come out of Dorne. Also notable for an excellent scene with Arya and the Hound clearing out an Inn.
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45/73 29. Season two, episode three: What is Dead May Never Die
Introduces Margaery Tyrell and Brienne of Tarth, two of the best characters, and also sees Theon decide to betray Robb Stark. What is family? Who can you trust?
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46/73 28. Season three, episode eight: Second Sons
Built around Sansa and Tyrion’s unwelcome wedding, while in the north there is a display of how important Sam will be as he draws on reserves of bravery to dragonglass a white walker.
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47/73 27. Season four, episode seven: Mockingbird
Littlefinger dumping Lysa out of the Eyrie is probably the most dramatic moment here, one of his decisive power-stealing moments as he saves Sansa.
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48/73 26. Season one, episode one: Winter Is Coming
Can you remember a time before Game of Thrones? Re-watch ‘Winter is Coming’, marvel at the baby Starks, think on how many characters have died, reflect on your own mortality. You are much, much older than when Game of Thrones began. Your life is running between your fingers.
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49/73 25. Season one, episode six: A Golden Crown
Another dramatic death which is hard to remember now, as the miserable Viserys was put out of his grump with molten gold.
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50/73 24: Season eight, episode six: ‘The Iron Throne’
Well, that was that. The grand finale provoked much gnashing of teeth and hot air, not all of it from Drogon. In truth, things were tied up as best they could, given the way the the different pieces had been arranged, although some of the criticism was valid. The king-choosing and first council scenes were amazingly lame. A number of questions were skirted over. Still, what a spectacle.
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51/73 23. Season two, episode six: Old Gods and the New
Theon takes Winterfell. Theon, you utter bastard. I hope you are punished for this.
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52/73 22. Season five, episode three: High Sparrow
A key Littlefinger episode, as he continues to manipulate Sansa, while Jon Snow executes Janos and, in King’s Landing, Cersei’s machinations are matched by Margaery’s.
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53/73 21. Season four, episode two: The Lion and the Rose
Joffrey, scratching at his throat, going purple, dying. Top stuff.
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54/73 20. Season four, episode six: The Laws of Gods and Men
An excellent mid-season episode, built around Tyrion’s trial but with lots of other things to admire that hint at the underlying economies in the Game of Thrones universe. Drogon barbecues some livestock, while the Iron Bank of Braavos refuses to bail out Davos and Stannis.
HBO
55/73 19. Season three, episode four: And Now His Watch Is Ended
The full depravity of Ramsay Bolton is laid bare as he taunts Theon with a fake escape, while Commander Mormont is murdered at Craster’s Keep. But really it’s all about Daenerys, as she and her pets flame Astapor to the ground.
HBO
56/73 18. Season seven, episode seven: The Dragon and the Wolf
It turns out Jon Snow is actually the true heir to the Seven Kingdoms, the remaining Stark children finally team up to kill Littlefinger, admittedly in overwrought style, and the White Walkers use their new lizard hairdryer to destroy the wall. There is far too much going on, especially the odd scene where Jon shows Cersei the wight, but nevertheless it sends you reaching for the popcorn and cheering along, which is more or less where we are at with the whole series by now.
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57/73 17. Season three, episode five: Kissed by Fire
Most notable for Ygritte and Jon’s much-parodied love grotto scene, but also for the Hound’s duel with Bendric Dondarrion, which revealed his terror of fire. Nursing his stump in the baths, Jaime tells Brienne the truth about his assassination of the Mad King. Mid-seasoner.
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58/73 16. Season five, episode 10: Mother’s Mercy
The denouement of the fifth series is the most sympathetic we ever see Cersei, as she completes her walk of atonement through the streets of King’s Landing, her hair cut and her clothes stripped. Strategically, humiliating Cersei proves not to be the masterstroke the High Sparrow thought it would be.
HBO
59/73 15. Season seven, episode four: The Spoils of War
Spoils aplenty. Arya returns to Winterfell and sees Sansa, then fights a brief duel with Brienne that shows just how much she’s learnt. It’s nothing on one of the great shots of the whole series, however: Daenerys riding Drogon above a Dothraki horde in full charge before incinerating the Lannister lines.
HBO
60/73 14. Season one, episode 10: Fire and Blood
We were promised dragons, and here they are, mewing atop the naked Daenerys. And one thing we know about baby dragons is they must grow up. This is Game of Thrones’ version of Chekhov’s rule about guns. You’ll keep watching until they torch something.
HBO
61/73 13. Season five, episode eight: Hardhome
As the big battles go, the showdown between the Night’s Watch and wildlings and the wights at Hardhome doesn’t quite match some of the others, but it is still dead cool, especially when Jon realises his sword works against the snowmen. If that wasn’t enough, Sansa also learnt that her family might be alive.
HBO
62/73 12. Season four, episode nine: The Watchers on the Wall
The big set-piece between the Night’s Watch and the wildlings. Not quite up to Blackwater’s standards, despite its battle specialist Neil Marshall being summonsed back to direct.
HBO
63/73 11. Season seven, episode three: The Queen’s Justice
There is too much crammed into this episode, which could have been spread over several hours, but it’s wonderful stuff all the same. Jon meets Daenerys for the first time, Sam cures Jorah of greyscale, Cersei obliterates the Tyrells. Best of all is Diana Rigg, at a table in her tower, bowing out from what is perhaps Thrones’ best overall performance.
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64/73 10. Season eight, episode five
One of the most divisive episodes, as Dany’s frustrations spilled over into a holocaust in King’s Landing. Whatever you thought of the pacing, or the plot’s fidelity to the characters, it was quite a spectacle, and killed off several key figures in dramatic style.
HBO
65/73 9. Season six, episode five: The Door
Poor old Hodor. The death nobody wanted, as a wonderful character, played so sympathetically by Kristian Nairn, is finally given his due.
HBO
66/73 8. Season four, episode eight: The Mountain and the Viper
Other things happen: Littlefinger takes over the Vale, and the Boltons move into Winterfell, but the episode is mainly memorable for the central duel, as Oberyn seeks justice from the man who murdered so many of his relatives, and for one image above all, of the Mountain’s armoured fingers crushing Oberyn’s skull like a grapefruit.
HBO
67/73 7. Season one, episode nine: Baelor
Poor old Ned Stark. The death they said could never happen! Clearly they had not watched enough Sean Bean films.
HBO
68/73 6. Season eight, episode three: The Long Night
After two scene-setting episodes, The Long Night finally delivers on the promise of season eight, with 90 minutes of marvellous blood and fire at Winterfell. The Night King’s hordes meet the assembled ranks of Westeros, wildlings, Dothraki and Unsullied. The defenders lose and lose and lose until they finally win, although not before a few spectacular deaths. If it lacks some of the strategic nuance of other battles, it compensates with stunning action sequences and CGI, especially on the dragons, who dogfight high above the plain.
HBO
69/73 5. Season six, episode 10: The Winds of Winter
Winter has come. It opens with peak Cersei, as she eliminates all her remaining enemies in one enormous blaze. Arya kills Walder Frey. The Jon Theory is confirmed. Tommen walks out of the window.
HBO
70/73 4. Season three, episode nine: Rains of Castemere
The Lannisters send their regards. Some would have this number one, and one could easily make the case. The Red Wedding was the scene that broke Game of Thrones out of its fandom and into broader popular culture, the point where it was no longer avoidable. Fury, anguish, love, surprise, pity, hate: it’s all here. The look Roose Bolton gives Catelyn Stark when she reveals the chainmail he is wearing to dinner might be my single favourite moment of the whole programme.
HBO
71/73 3. Season six, episode nine: Battle of the Bastards
Anyone who has seen Mel Gibson’s Mayan drama Apocalypto knows that running in a straight line away from arrows rarely works. So it proved for Rickon, setting up one of the great battles not only on TV but on any kind of film. Where in previous seasons battles had occasionally felt hampered by budget, most egregiously when Tyrion was knocked out and missed the whole thing, this was the full belt and braces. It was brilliantly directed, with aerial shots, as well as face-in-the-mud close-ups to convey the full grinding horror of the battle, and the grim relief of victory.
HBO
72/73 2. Season four, episode 10: The Children
The fourth season is the best all-round, I think, the high-point of character development before it started to be forced by the machinations of the plot in the later series. Brienne’s bloody brawl with the Hound leaves him bleeding and broken, as Arya heads off to Braavos. Tywin finally gets his comeuppance, a crossbow bolt on the loo, administered by his son, Tyrion, who then flees. And Stannis’s cavalry arrives to save Jon and defeat Mance Rayder and the wildlings in a pincer movement, having been persuaded by Davos.
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73/73 1. Season two, episode nine: Blackwater
This is purely a personal view, but if Ned Stark’s death was the moment you sat up and paid attention, Blackwater was the where you started cheering at the TV. The scale, the splendour, the depth of character brought to bear on grand events: they all felt new, somehow. This might have been the last moment where we were equally rooting for both sides, except for one side to be consumed in an eerie green glow. Wildfire doesn’t care who your favourite character is.
HBO
Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw is in cinemas now.
