Season 11

Lauren Laverne meets style icon and musical innovator Grace Jones, Mark Kermode celebrates the 25th anniversary of cherished film Local Hero, and Andrew Graham -Dixon argues that £100 million is small beer to prevent two paintings by Titian being sold abroad.

Actress Angelina Jolie discusses her career, Martin Freeman meets The Funk Brothers, and Tom Hunter gives Titian's Diana and Actaeon a modern spin.

Five accomplished artists guest this week: actor Michael Sheen discusses his role in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon while singer Tom Jones takes the show's busking challenge; plus Scottish poet Mick Imlah, music producer Kanye West and, in the week he turns 50, Oscar-winning animator Nick Park. Lauren Laverne hosts.

The Culture Show takes a look at the cinematic visionary, Baz Luhrmann. The director of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet, and Moulin Rouge, Luhrmann deals in colour, romance and spectacle. He has directed La Boheme on Broadway, and had a worldwide hit single with Wear Sunscreen. Now he's embarked on his most ambitious film to date Australia - a 130 million dollar epic set in northern Australia on the eve of World War II, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman.

Lauren Laverne, Mark Kermode and Andrew Graham-Dixon look back at some of the year's cultural highlights, including a powerful interview with the film director Anthony Minghella, who died last March. Elsewhere, an "encounter" with the late artist Marcel Duchamp and music from Elbow with Richard Hawley. Plus Johnny Depp and Ricky Gervais.

This special edition, marking the 50th anniversary of Motown Records, sees actor and Motown devotee Martin Freeman making the trip of a lifetime to Detroit, and then Los Angeles, to meet some of the label's biggest stars - among them, Duke Fakir of the original Four Tops, Otis Williams, Martha Reeves and Mary Wilson, as well as Marlon, Tito and Jackie from the Jackson Five.

This week's show sees Danny Boyle's Mumbai set Slumdog Millionaire, which was released last Friday, shown to a specially invited all-Indian audience; DJ Nihal joins Glasgow band Franz Ferdinand ahead of the release of their third album; and a search for Liverpool's best pub singers culminates with the top acts performing on stage with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Barack Obama's inauguration is marked with a trip to Harlem. Plus Ed Burns, co-writer of the new president's favourite TV show, The Wire, on his Iraq war account Generation Kill, Roberto Saviano on Gomorrah - his book about the Naples mafia, and now a film tipped for an Oscar nomination - and backstage with Armando Iannucci as he gears up for the first night of satirical opera Skin Deep.

Lauren Laverne is in Glasgow to extol the virtues of the Celtic Connections festival, Robert Carlyle and Siobhan Redmond lead a celebration of the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns's birth, and Nihal joins Franz Ferdinand backstage.

The great pianist Alfred Brendel, recently retired from public performance, gives a rare interview, revealing his passion for the films of Spanish surrealist director Luis Bunuel. Plus Greg Dyke 's trip to LA to uncover the creative forces behind HBO, the company responsible for such hits as The Wire, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under.

Mark Kermode and Miranda Sawyer debate the merits of Heat magazine, which celebrates its tenth birthday, and celebrity culture in general, Greg Dyke continues his report on HBO, and Martin McDonagh discusses his Oscar-nominated film In Bruges.

With the Oscars fast approaching, tonight's Culture Show offers its very own alternative: the Kermode awards, for those overlooked by the Academy. And, 50 years after it first hit British stages, Lauren Laverne previews a new production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot starring Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.

Lauren Laverne visits U2, ahead of the release of their first album in five years, No Line on the Horizon. Will it mark a new musical direction? And what of the lives of the band members as they approach 50? Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry reveal all and give an intimate performance.

Lauren Laverne heads home to the North East, looking at what the cultural and artistic future holds for the region and to share a pint with Viz creators Chris and Simon Donald. Alistair Sooke talks to Yoko Ono about her retrospective exhibition at the Baltic in Gateshead, Between the Sky and My Head. And Gomorrah author, Roberto Saviano , reflects on how big-screen portrayals of the Mafia have shaped the Sicilian outfit.

Lauren Laverne meets Seattle band Fleet Foxes who saw off the likes of Elbow and Radiohead to win the inaugural Uncut Music Award and who perform exclusively for the show. Plus Andrew Graham Dixon at the Tate Modern's exhibition of Russian Constructivist art, and an interview with punk poet John Cooper Clarke, whose work has provided inspiration for bands including Arctic Monkeys and Reverend and the Makers.

Special edition all about the life and work of one of the greatest artists of the 20th century - Pablo Picasso. Andrew Graham-Dixon is in Paris - the art capital of 20th-century Europe and the place where Picasso spent much of his life. Andrew tells Picasso's story from his early days in Montmartre, the artist's obsession with all things Modern and the invention of Cubism, through to Picasso's fascination with the Grand Masters of European painting. Picasso endlessly borrowed from, copied, satirised and re-vamped the paintings of the European masters including Delacroix, El Greco, Velazquez, Goya, Rembrandt, Degas and Manet. The programme includes contributions from Picasso's grandson Olivier and his biographer Pierre Daix. Sixty of Picasso's paintings will be on display at a major exhibition at the National Gallery in London. Picasso: Challenging the Past runs from February 25th until June and will show how Picasso's work was shaped and inspired by the Masters of European painting.

The last in the current series comes from the Whitechapel Gallery in east London, which reopens next month following a £13 million restoration. Mark Kermode meets "Being John Malkovich" writer Charlie Kaufman who has just directed his first film, Synecdoche, New York, and Lauren Laverne meets American singer/songwriter Will Oldham, aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy.