The Review

Top Gun

Top Gun: Maverick is out soon! But can any movie with fast planes, Tom Cruise, and beach volleyball truly compare to the classic fighter pilot movie about, as writer Shir

Knocked Up

In a possibly-soon-to-be-post-Roe v Wade world, our hosts Sophie Gilbert, Megan Garber, and Hannah Giorgis thought it'd be worth re-examining the Judd Apatow/Seth Rogan c

Winning Time

The 1980s Los Angeles Lakers were one of the most dominant teams in sports. At a time when professional basketball was on its heels, the Lakers dynasty brought new excite

Severance

The Apple TV+ dystopian thriller Severance is one of the most acclaimed shows of the year. Its grim take on the furthest extreme of "work-life balance" speaks to our stra

The Northman

Shirley Li, David Sims, and Sophie Gilbert discuss the brutal new blockbuster The Northman. From the director of The Lighthouse and The Witch and based on the viking lege

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Shirley Li, David Sims, and Spencer Kornhaber discuss the hit action comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once. At a time when every show or movie has a multiverse, how do

Turning Red

Shirley Li, Spencer Kornhaber, and Lenika Cruz discuss the Pixar coming-of-age film Turning Red, why they found it utterly charming, and why this post-villain era of anim

Is Pop Music Obsessed With Nostalgia?

Spencer Kornhaber, Shirley Li, and Hannah Giorgis assess the state of pop music following the Grammys. While the much-derided awards have improved at celebrating the dive

The Dropout

From Theranos to WeWork to the socialite grifter Anna Delvey, television these days is all about the art of the scam. Why are we so fascinated with the rise-and-fall stor

West Side Story

West Side Story is a work with some huge names behind it: Leonard Bernstein wrote the musical, Stephen Sondheim the lyrics, and Shakespeare the source material Romeo and

The Batman

The Batman is already 2022’s highest-grossing film. In some ways, it’s yet another comic-book adaptation to dominate theaters. In others, it’s a return to a pre-MCU cinem

Drive My Car

Drive My Car is a special movie. It’s Japan’s most Oscar-nominated film ever—and its first to be up for Best Picture. It enters the final weeks of awards season as the fi

The Power of the Dog

The Jane Campion western drama The Power of the Dog is the most Oscar-nominated film this year. But does it—as Spencer Kornhaber has written—have a queer problem? Based o

Pam & Tommy

Sophie Gilbert, Spencer Kornhaber, and Shirley Li discuss the Hulu series about “the greatest love story ever sold” and ask: Is Pam & Tommy just repeating the exploitatio

Can Rom-Coms Make a Comeback?

The romantic comedy was once a cinema tentpole. The films defined A-list careers. They won Hollywood studios awards. And they made oodles of money. Then one day, rom-coms

The Experiment: Uncle Spam

This episode is the first in a new three-part miniseries from The Experiment—“SPAM: How the American Dream Got Canned.”  During World War II, wherever American troops spr

Yellowjackets

Attempts to summarize the Showtime series Yellowjackets often lean on creaky comparisons: A female Lord of the Flies? A 90's Stranger Things? Teen Lost, but in Canada?  I

The Lost Daughter

“I’m an unnatural mother.” It was this one line that drew first-time director Maggie Gyllenhaal to adapt the 2006 Elena Ferrante novel The Lost Daughter. Her new Netflix

Frasier

Comfort watches are a mainstay of the pandemic—old television and movies one can revisit over and over again. And for a few writers on The Atlantic’s culture team, that g

Don't Look Up

Adam McKay’s disaster satire is many things at once: a parable of our distracted society, a primal scream of a warning, and a broad comedy from the writer/director of Anc