Queen of the Desert

Letters: During the first world war she suggested that the recently formed Royal Flying Corps use Iraq to refine its bombing technique on the country’s small, isolated villages

She was an explorer, an archaeologist, a writer and a spy. Now there’s a campaign to turn Gertrude Bell’s vandalised childhood home in Redcar into a museum

The knicker-waver from the Railway Children has been acting for 50 years. She talks about her new movie Tin, her optimism about roles for older women – and why fish and chips can be just as good as caviar

Fifty Shades of Grey steals the limelight, but a more authentic intimacy is to be found in Andrew Haigh’s extraordinary 45 Years, starring Charlotte Rampling

Peter Bradshaw: Werner Herzog’s biopic of English adventurer Gertrude Bell is impeccably mounted, competently made, entirely respectable – and a bit of a plod

The German director says Nicole Kidman-starring explorer biopic will be the first of many female-led movies, but that current situation in Middle East means events depicted in film should be treated with caution