In seeking to understand his parents and his life, Flanagan merges memory and fiction to ponder the random nature of existence, resulting in a masterpiece of subtlety and depth

Archive material captures arrival in Australia of celebrities including Princess Anne, Fred Astaire and four-year-old Russell Crowe, as well as The War of the Worlds author’s explosive 1938-39 visit

This riff on HG Wells’s sci-fi novella has a sharp cast but relies on a wearisome play-within-a-play concept and lacks momentum

The four actors are less interested in Wells’s sci-fi fantasy than in the divisions of today as they stock up for the coming apocalypse with onions, tampons and jars of sperm

In a surprisingly class-conscious stage adaptation of the HG Wells-inspired musical from the Downton Abbey creator on Sky, Charlie Stemp radiates kindly innocence

Continuing our series of writers recommending maligned films is a defense of the troubled 1996 adaptation of the HG Wells cautionary tale

Away from Disney’s candied revisions, these stories – from Hans Christian Andersen to Helen Dunmore – tell archetypal truths about women’s experience