World Cup winners Germany lived up to their billing as as one of the clear favourites for Euro 2016 with a 2-0 victory over Ukraine in their opening game.

Poland will hope Robert Lewandowski can fire them to an automatic top-two qualification spot for Euro 2016 when they face Ukraine on Tuesday afternoon.

Switzerland and Poland have both reached the knock-out stage of the European Championship for the first time after finishing runners-up in their respective groups.

The Irishman is three-and-a-half hours long and is out on Netflix towards the end of the month, raising the initially tempting prospect of watching it at home, maybe spread over two, even three nights.

On paper, at least, Last Christmas seemed to have so much going for it - a screenplay co-written by the clever, funny, not-to-mention double-Oscar-winning Emma Thompson.

Six years ago, when the original Frozen film was released, I was one of many, many adults who absolutely loved it.

Somewhat improbably, this is a film that brings together two of the biggest franchises in the film-making world.

Film noir - that knowing mix of murder, a crumpled private investigator in a brimmed hat and always, but always, a deadly dame - is one of my favourite genres.

When he's in the right mood and in the right film, Danny DeVito is a class act.

At the media screening of what appears to be the last Star Wars film, a brief shot of the Scottish actor Denis Lawson at the controls of a Rebel Alliance fighter flashed up on to the screen.

My mother, a former actress, adored Little Women and read the book aloud to my sisters and me, with different voices for each of the March sisters.

By strange happenstance, Guy Ritchie's new film is full of actors I haven't always been very complimentary about being really rather good - with one disappointing exception.

At first glance, 1917 seems a strange film, a First World War picture that arrives three years too late for a centenary, three months too late for Remembrance Day.

I first saw Bombshell a few weeks ago, and when I told people what a treat they had heading their way, they naturally wanted to know what it was about.

As nomination season for the big film awards comes to a close, it is clear there are both winners - basically Joker, 1917, The Irishman and Once Upon A Time In Hollywood - and losers.

Amazingly, the great Clint Eastwood will be 90 years old this year, but there's little sign of his film-making career - now well into its seventh decade - slowing down.

Until 2008, Robert Downey Jr was best known as the troubled actor who failed to live up to the Oscar-nominated promise he demonstrated in Chaplin & came close to wrecking his career with drugs.

Before it hits what eventually turns out to be its totally delicious stride, there are moments when this new production of Jane Austen's Emma looks as if it's simply going to be too much.

By and large, I rather admire the film career carved out by Steve Coogan, an actor to whom there's always been more than the admittedly ridiculously funny Alan Partridge.

Let's begin with what this new version of The Invisible Man is not.

The film year is not quite the same as the calendar year, effectively running from one Oscar ceremony - this year's was in early February - to the next.

We live in seismic times for the women's movement.

Naturally, the whole sporting shindig began with a song, a mournful dirge to my ear. The BBC, we have long realised, has given up comprehensive TV coverage of games.

Proof positive that Benjamin Britten was the greatest opera composer of the mid-20th century came with this top-class performance of his first great success, Peter Grimes (1945).

The trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary, France's answer in both glamour and virtuosity to our own Alison Balsom, has a new album that's guaranteed to add an extra layer of good cheer this Christmas.

Richard Eyre's take on La Traviata celebrates its 25th birthday with performances through until late March, with four different Alfredos seducing five different Violettas.

Sheku Kanneh-Mason's new album, his second for Decca, is a real curate's egg.

Historically, the list of great British pianists is a sadly short one.

John Copley's classic 1974 production of La Bohème was finally laid to rest in 2015 after 25 revivals.

For many classical music lovers, myself included, Beethoven is the greatest. Even for those who don't rate him the best, it's hard to imagine any but the cloth-eared failing to rank him with Bach and Mozart.

John Wilson's hobby is creating orchestras. He began at college with a small jazz ensemble, which became the John Wilson Orchestra, specialising in music from Hollywood musicals.

Hats off to the little-known Irish composer Gerald Barry, whose late-flowering career (he's almost as old as me!) has produced a generally joyous take on Lewis Carroll's oeuvre to his own libretto.

Sony regularly rush-releases the New Year's Day concert from Vienna, and I sometimes wonder why it bothers. But not this time.

English National Opera is the Flying Dutchman of the operatic world, floating aimlessly around the repertoire, creating chaos most places it alights.

Herbert von Karajan, who died in 1989, shifted 200 million albums - an astonishing figure for a classical musician.

There are several good reasons for seeing this spirited revival of Anthony Minghella's 2005 Madam Butterfly , and one totally compelling one: the Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw.

Hats off to Deutsche Grammophon. Not only is it the producer of the finest complete Beethoven set in this, his 250th anniversary year.

Igor Stravinsky, not a great one for dishing out prizes to his colleagues, declared that Poulenc had the greatest melodic gift of any 20th-century composer.

Georges Bizet was 17, and a student working on a piano reduction of Charles Gounod's symphonies, when he wrote his own solitary Symphony.

Sometimes hype is just that; hype. But occasionally it's true.

We don't see much of Berlin-based Daniel Hope these days, but an album like this shows us what we are missing.

Shostakovich's 11th Symphony here receives a performance of exceptional eloquence from the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic under their chief guest conductor, the Finn John Storgårds.

The first Saturday in April could have been one of the biggest days in racing in recent memory, but this year's Grand National will instead be held virtually. Here, Sportsmail's Sam Turner provides his tips...

The most frequently quoted observation about Hollywood is the simplest, and possibly also the truest. 'In Hollywood,' said screenwriter William Goldman, 'no one knows anything.'

Ah, the Golden Age of Travel! This is not a book to be read while you are standing cooped-up on a crowded staircase for ten minutes as part of Ryanair's 'Priority Boarding'

After conducting a review of 57 climate change research papers, UK and Australian scientists say human-induced climate change promotes conditions that make wildfires spread.

Jordan James was so cringe-worthy, his audition on Saturday would have been genius if he were a character created by Steve Coogan, Simon Brodkin, or Ricky Gervais, which I still think he might be.

We had officially reached the dregs on The Voice UK. A horrifying concept I know, not to say hard to picture considering how bad the ‘good’ contestants sound.

Only a sadistic genius could have come up with the idea of the Battles round on The Voice UK.

ADRIAN THRILLS: When he was singing with One Direction, Louis Tomlinson was the British boy-next-door. Walls generally stays faithful to the indie rock that shaped his formative years.