Aptly for the tale of a reanimated corpse, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been brought to life on the big screen more than 400 times. Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape Of Water auteur Guillermo del Toro is the latest to stitch together his vision for the story. And joining a cast that includes Oscar Isaac as the titular scientist and Jacob Elordi as “the Creature” is Felix Kammerer, who plays Victor Frankenstein’s brother, William. The 30-year-old Austrian actor made a name for himself treading the boards in Berlin before scoring the lead role in 2022’s All Quiet On The Western Front for his film debut.

Frankenstein is on Netflix from 7 November

From playing a young Prince Harry in The Crown to a gnarly underworld gang leader in the Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw-helmed Netflix hit Black Doves, Luther Ford has some serious range. He is one of this year’s most promising new talents thanks to his spellbinding stint as the Anglo-Saxon earl, Tostig Godwinson, younger brother to James Norton’s Harold in the BBC’s historical epic King & Conqueror. Next up, see him as Billy in the second season of Apple TV+’s Criminal Record, opposite Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo.

King & Conqueror is on BBC iPlayer now

Parts in The Dark Knight, Fast & Furious 6 and Black Mirror led to recurring roles in Star Trek: Discovery and Supergirl. Now the London-born actor David Ajala has landed Nine Bodies In A Mexican Morgue, the new thriller created by British novelist Anthony Horowitz. In the six-part series, Ajala plays an insurance investigator who finds himself among a group of survivors left stranded following an airplane crash. But do these disparate strangers have more to worry about than the Mexican jungle? Regardless, Ajala looks to emerge from the wreckage with a career that is set to soar.

Nine Bodies In A Mexican Morgue is on BBC iPlayer now

Best known for his role as Roddy Ho in Apple TV+’s Slow Horses, Christopher Chung is quietly becoming one of the most compelling screen presences of his generation, infusing the tech-savvy agent with wit and unexpected emotional layers – and consistently stealing scenes in a series stacked with industry heavyweights. He played gang member Fred in Steve McQueen’s wartime drama Blitz and now, with a central role in Netflix’s upcoming adaptation of My Brilliant Career, he steps confidently, and deservedly, into leading-man territory.

Slow Horses is on Apple TV+ now

If you haven’t been living under a rock this past week, you must have heard of Netflix’s House Of Guinness, a gritty period drama about legacy, addiction and Ireland’s most famous yet fractured dynasty. Fionn O’Shea, who plays middle son Benjamin Lee Guinness II, isn’t exactly the loudest name in the room, but he’s certainly the one worth watching. Lately, he’s carved a name for himself for portraying layered, emotionally nuanced characters who don’t quite fit in. He’s equally arresting in Lilies Not For Me (2024), a dark period drama where he plays a young novelist caught in the harsh realities of 1920s conversion therapy. And in Dance First (2023), he captures the idealistic yet fragile young Samuel Beckett with piercing emotional depth.

House Of Guinness is on Netflix now

Filling the Downton Abbey-shaped hole in our lives, Julian Fellowes’ historical drama The Gilded Age is a tour de force on which Ben Ahlers is flying. His scene-stealing turn as Jack Trotter, the former footman of the monied van Rhijn-Brook family who comes into wealth, is captivating. This part comes after Ahlers’ run on the one-man theatre show, John Wilkes Booth: One Night Only! (written by Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner), as well as a memorable cameo on the second season of HBO’s The Last Of Us. Next up, spot him in Little Brother alongside John Cena and The White Lotus alum Michelle Monaghan. One thing’s for sure, Ahlers’ 2026 is only set to get starrier.

The Gilded Age is available on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW

Set to appear as Edgar Linton, Catherine’s husband of good breeding in Emerald Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights, Shazad Latif can currently be seen in Atomic and as Captain Nemo in the Amazon Prime series Nautilus. But you will undoubtedly have spotted him before that, in a string of shows including Star Trek: Discovery, Black Mirror or Spooks. Or as Clem Fandango, the fantastically named hipster intern manning the recording studio desk and ruining Matt Berry’s day in the comedy Toast Of London. Yes, we can hear you, Clem Fandango.

Wuthering Heights is out on 13 February 2026; Atomic is available on Sky Atlantic and streaming service NOW

Since his breakout role in 2016’s Fences – holding his own against Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Viola Davis – Jovan Adepo has dipped into everything from WWII dystopia (Overlord) to superhero satire (Watchmen, which earnt him an Emmy nomination) and Hollywood excess (Babylon). This month sees him master the world of horror in IT: Welcome To Derry, the long-awaited TV prequel to the Stephen King novel. 2026 brings more great things for Adepo as he steps into the lead part on Netflix’s 3 Body Problem and then he joins the cast of Christopher Nolan’s next project, The Odyssey, with Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway. Leading man status: unlocked.

IT: Welcome To Derry is out on 27 October

Sam Levinson’s HBO series Euphoria has incubated some of Hollywood’s brightest young things (Zendaya, Jacob Elordi and Hunter Schafer – need we say more) and Austin Abrams is no exception. He’s currently on the big screen in Zach Cregger’s sinister thriller Weapons alongside Josh Brolin and Julia Garner. Next, he reunites with Brolin for the Ron Howard-produced Whalefall about a scuba diver who, while looking for his father’s remains, is swallowed by an 80-foot whale and has just one hour before his oxygen runs out.

Weapons is out now

The British actor, writer, comedian and musician began his career posting YouTube videos as a teen before training at the prestigious École Philippe Gaulier theatre school. As a screenwriter, he’s penned standout episodes of Sex Education. And comedy fans might know him from his eye-catching turn on the cult British panel show Taskmaster. In 2023, his 2018 Edinburgh Fringe show Juice was adapted for TV. A second season of the surreal, award-winning sitcom recently arrived on BBC Three, co-starring Russell Tovey, as well as Rizwan’s brother, the actor Nabhaan Rizwan – himself previously named one of MR PORTER’s best-dressed men of 2024.

Juice is on BBC iPlayer now

Even if the phrase “social commentary by a spoken-word artist” doesn’t exactly spin your cycle, it’s worth giving Joshua Idehen’s Mum Does The Washing EP a whirl. For one, it’s very funny. And two, it makes you think. Like much of the British-born, Sweden-based Nigerian creative’s output, it marries a cerebral way with words with an emotional heft. It’s poetry, reflected through a nightclub mirror ball, with banging beats to match. His new song “It Always Was” is the first single off his debut album, I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got To Try, which is out in March 2026. And after lending his talents to the likes of The Comet Is Coming and Sons of Kemet, Idehen can – and should – be seen on tour this autumn and in the new year, headlining his own shows and providing support for Baxter Dury.

“It Always Was” is out now

Honing his skills over five albums, the Chicago-based rapper and singer McKinley Dixon delivers what could be the record of his career – and certainly should be among the best hip-hop releases of the year. Magic, Alive! channels the conscious, Daisy Age sound of De La Soul at their peak, with a lively, jazz-tinged production and smart, vivid lyrics. And while it is a dense, multi-layered concept album that tackles – buckle up – death as its core subject, it does so with a deft lightness in a breezy 35 minutes. Dixon will be touring the UK and Europe in October and November.

Magic, Alive! is out now

AKA Jake Stewart, the Portsmouth-born, Bristol-based DJ currently making a name for himself (under the chatline-aping moniker) in the UK’s underground music scene. His sound merges a nostalgic blast of long-shuttered superclubs with the electronic beats of the future, shimmying between dance and indie influences. His productions, which touch on euphoric house and left-field electronica, showcase the best of where club culture is currently at, gaining traction with platforms as broad as BBC Radio 6 Music and HÖR Berlin. He can make you dance and he can make you think.

songs 4 her EP is out now

As scenes at their recent free show in Brooklyn displayed, Geese have become something of an unstoppable force. Following Heavy Metal, last year’s solo debut from frontman Cameron Winter, the band’s latest record, Getting Killed, expands on their garage and lo-fi new-wave New York sound to incorporate piano ballads, trombones and guest vocals from a Ukrainian choir and JPEGMAFIA. Getting Killed is a thrilling release from an excitable outfit pulling in many different directions at once (and somehow still pulling it off).

Getting Killed is out now