Critics at Large | The New Yorker

On October 19th, a group of masked men broke into the Louvre in broad daylight and made off with some of France’s crown jewels. Suspects are now in custody, but the online fervor is still going strong. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the sordid satisfaction of watching a heist play out, both onscreen and off. They dive into the debacle at the Louvre, along with a range of fictional depictions, from the fantasy of hyper-competence in “Ocean’s Eleven” to the theft that goes woefully awry in Kelly Reichardt’s new film, “The Mastermind.” Part of the fun, it seems, lies in rooting for those who identify and exploit the blind spots of an institution. “Someone else, just like me, is seeing that everybody is an idiot. But, unlike me, they’re able to best those people in charge,” Fry says. “It’s an alternative morality—a morality of wits.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The Mastermind” (2025)“Ocean’s Eleven” (2001)Stella Webb’s impression of “the Louvre heist Creative Director”Jake Schroeder’s “Ballad for the Louvre”“Showing Up” (2022)“The Italian Job” (1969)“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” (1980)“Drive” (2011)“Le Cercle Rouge” (1970)“This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist” (2021)“Good Time” (2017)“George Santos and the Art of the Scam” (The New Yorker)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyyw Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Padma Lakshmi is unquestionably a woman of taste. As a host of the beloved food-competition series “Top Chef” and the star of the culinary docuseries “Taste the Nation,” she’s spent nearly two decades artfully conveying—and critiquing—flavors and aromas for an audience. Before that, she was a fashion writer and model, cultivating her own sense of what’s worth wearing and seeing. And she isn’t done evolving: she’s recently begun performing standup comedy, an art form with a notoriously steep learning curve. In a live taping at The New Yorker Festival, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz talk with Lakshmi about the difference between discernment and pickiness, how travel has expanded her taste, and her approach to rendering judgement on TV. “I see my job as helping,” Lakshmi says. “I see my job as being the person in the kitchen who’s saying, ‘Does this need a little salt?’ ”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Top Chef” (2006—)“Taste the Nation” (2020-23)“RuPaul’s Drag Race” (2009—)“American Idol” (2002—)“Project Runway” (2004—)“Padma’s All American,” by Padma Lakshmi“Padma Lakshmi Walks Into a Bar,” by Helen Rosner (The New Yorker)“Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” (The New Yorker)Dijon’s “Baby”“Frankenstein” (2025)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyywCritics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Horror movies are big business: this year, they’ve accounted for more ticket sales in the U.S. than comedies and dramas combined, bringing in over a billion dollars at the box office. And the phenomenon goes beyond a hunger for cheap thrills and slasher flicks; artists have been using horror to explore deep-seated communal and personal anxieties for centuries. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz, along with the New Yorker culture editor Alex Barasch, use three contemporary entries—“The Babadook,” “Saint Maud,” and “Weapons”—to illustrate the inventive filmmaking and sharp social commentary that have become hallmarks of modern horror. “In the past, the horror would be something external that’s disrupting a previously idyllic town or life. Now there's a lot more of: the bad thing has already happened to you,” Barasch says. “You already have a trauma at the beginning of the film—or even before the film begins—and then that is eating you from the inside, or trying to kill you, and you have to grapple with that.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The Babadook” (2014)“Rosemary’s Baby” (1968)“Scream with Me,” by Eleanor Johnson“Hereditary” (2018)“The Substance” (2024)“Saint Maud” (2020)The “Saw” franchise (2004—)“The Exorcist” (1973)“The Case Against the Trauma Plot,” by Parul Sehgal (The New Yorker)“Weapons” (2025)“Barbarian” (2022) “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974)“Get Out” (2017)“Alien” (1979)“The Blair Witch Project” (1999)“Talk to Me” (2022)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyywCritics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On August 7, 1985, five family members were shot dead in their English country manor, Whitehouse Farm. It looked like an open-and-shut case. But the New Yorker staff writer Heidi Blake finds that almost nothing about this story is as it seems. New Yorker subscribers get early, ad-free access to “Blood Relatives.” In Apple Podcasts, tap the link at the top of the feed to subscribe or link an existing subscription. Or visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe and listen in the New Yorker app. In the Dark has merch! Buy specially designed hats, T-shirts, and totes for yourself or a loved one at store.newyorker.com.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Generative A.I., once an uncanny novelty, is now being used to create not only images and videos but entire “artists.” Its boosters claim that the technology is merely a tool to facilitate human creativity; the major use cases we’ve seen thus far—and the money being poured into these projects—tell a different story. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the output of Timbaland’s A.I. rapper TaTa Taktumi and the synthetic actress Tilly Norwood. They also look back at movies and television that imagined what our age of A.I. would look like, from “2001: A Space Odyssey” onward. “A.I. has been a source of fascination, of terror, of appeal,” Schwartz says. “It’s the human id in virtual form—at least in human-made art.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:TaTa Taktumi’s “Glitch x Pulse”Cardi B’s “Am I the Drama?”“Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE” (2024)“Dear Tilly Norwood,” by Betty Gilpin (The Hollywood Reporter)Tilly Norwood’s Instagram account“Holly Herndon’s Infinite Art,” by Anna Wiener (The New Yorker)“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)“The Morning Show” (2019—)“Simone” (2002)“Blade Runner” (1982)“Ex Machina” (2014)“The Man Who Sells Unsellable New York Apartments,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” by Walter Benjamin“The Death of the Author,” by Roland BarthesNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyywCritics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the latest installment of the Critics at Large advice series, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz answer listeners’ questions about a range of conundrums. Some seek to immerse themselves in fictional worlds; others look for help with their own creative practices. Plus, the actor Morgan Spector (best known as Mr. Russell on “The Gilded Age”) calls in to ask the critics about poetry. “As always after we do this kind of show, my faith in humankind is restored,” Fry says. “Our listeners want to connect—they want to grow. They’re looking to pass through life not just on autopilot but to look to culture for meaning.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Ethan Hawke: Give yourself permission to be creative” (TED)The poetry of Diane Seuss“Lilacs,” by Rainer Diana Hamilton“The Wire” (2002-8)“The Americans” (2013-18)“Billy Joel: And So It Goes” (2025)“The Good Wife” (2009-16)“30 Rock” (2006-13)“How a Billionaire Owner Brought Turmoil and Trouble to Sotheby’s,” by Sam Knight (The New Yorker)“Lupin” (2021—)“The First Wives Club” (1996)“A Quick Killing in Art,” by Phoebe Hoban“Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?” by Sam Graham-Felsen (the New York Times Magazine)Aaron Karo and Matt Ritter’s “Man of the Year”“The Archers” (1951—)“How to Cook a Wolf,” by M. F. K. Fisher“Home Cooking,” by Laurie Colwin“Fresh Air with Terry Gross”“What Was Paul Gauguin Looking For?,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)“Wild Thing,” by Sue Prideaux“Mr. Turner” (2014)“Topsy-Turvy” (1999)“The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing,” by Adam MossSuzan-Lori Parks’s “Watch Me Work”New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyywCritics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Scrutiny of the figure of the “trad wife” has hit a fever pitch. These influencers’ accounts feature kempt, feminine women embracing hyper-traditional roles in marriage and home-making—and, in doing so, garnering millions of followers. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss standout practitioners of the “trad” life style, including Nara Smith, who makes cereal and toothpaste from scratch, and Hannah Neeleman, who, posting under the handle @ballerinafarm, presents a life caring for eight children in rural Utah as a bucolic fantasy. The hosts also discuss “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a reality-television show on Hulu about a group of Mormon influencers engulfed in scandal, whose notions of female empowerment read as a quaint reversal of the trad-wife trend. A common defense of a life style that some would call regressive is that it’s a personal choice, devoid of political meaning. But this gloss is complicated by societal changes such as the erosion of women’s rights in America and skyrocketing child-care costs. “In American society, the way choice works has everything to do with child-care options, financial options,” Schwartz says. “When you talk about the idea of choice, are we just talking about false choices?” This episode originally aired on Sept. 5, 2024. Read, watch, and listen with the critics:@ballerinafarm@gwenthemilkmaid@naraazizasmith“How Lucky Blue and Nara Aziza Smith Made Viral Internet Fame From Scratch,” by Carrie Battan (GQ)“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” (2024–)@esteecwilliams“Mad Men” (2007-15)The Little House on the Prairie series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder“Wilder Women,” by Judith Thurman (The New Yorker)“Meet the Queen of the “Trad Wives” (and Her Eight Children),” by Megan Agnew (The Times of London) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyywCritics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Over the course of his three-decade career, the director Paul Thomas Anderson has dramatized the nineteen-seventies porn industry (“Boogie Nights”), the Californian oil boom (“There Will Be Blood”), and a mid-century London fashion house (“Phantom Thread”). Now he’s trained his gaze on present-day America. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss Anderson’s latest: the sprawling, surprisingly political blockbuster “One Battle After Another.” They contextualize the new work within his œuvre—and debate what his portrayal of militant left-wing activists and the white-supremacist right has to say about the state of the nation. “I think our present reality has far outstripped most depictions of it,” Schwartz says. “Slipping it into this kind of caper—is that delivering us to somewhere that gets people to think or to look or to feel?”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“One Battle After Another” (2025)“Vineland,” by Thomas Pynchon“Inherent Vice” (2014)“Boogie Nights” (1997)“The Master” (2012)“Punch-Drunk Love” (2002)“There Will Be Blood” (2007)“Phantom Thread” (2017)“ ‘Eddington’ and the American Berserk” (The New Yorker)Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not be Televised”New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyywCritics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In contemporary cookbooks—and in the burgeoning realm of online cooking content—there’s often a life style on display alongside the recipes. Samin Nosrat is a fixture of this landscape, and her new book, “Good Things,” aims to pick up where her mega-best-seller “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” left off, giving people a new framework for feeding themselves and loved ones. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz share their personal experiences making dishes from “Good Things.” Then, New Yorker staff writer Helen Rosner joins them to explain the state of home cooking today, from the rise of culinary influencers and the New York Times Cooking app to the aspirational dimension of what’s on offer. “Not only is cooking supposed to be part of a life, but, specifically, it can be a part of the life of the mind,” Cunningham says. “Your choices in the kitchen can be deeply connected to your desires outside of the kitchen.”Read, watch, and cook with the critics:“Tender at the Bone,” by Ruth Reichl“Heartburn,” by Nora Ephron“Good Things,” by Samin Nosrat“Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” by Samin Nosrat“The Joylessness of Cooking,” by Helen Rosner (The New Yorker)“All-Consuming,” by Ruby Tandoh@wishbonekitchen“Jerusalem,” by Yotam Ottolenghi“Ottolenghi Simple,” by Yotam Ottolenghi“Dining In,” by Alison Roman“Nothing Fancy,” by Alison Roman“Alison Roman Cooks Thanksgiving in a (Very) Small Kitchen” (The New York Times)“Let’s Party,” by Dan Pelosi“How to Cook Everything,” by Mark Bittman“Serial Monogamy,” by Nora Ephron (The New Yorker)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and po… Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the past twenty years, more than a third of all American newspapers have shuttered; trust in media institutions is now at a historic low. And yet we’re still drawn to depictions of reporters onscreen. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss two recent entries into the genre: “The Paper,” a workplace comedy from Greg Daniels and Michael Koman set at a failing local newspaper, and “The Lowdown,” a crime noir from Sterlin Harjo about a freelancer and self-styled “truthstorian.” They compare these new works with earlier examples to illuminate how the practice—and perception—of journalism has changed. In classics such as “All the President’s Men,” Fry notes, “The airing of the facts via the news, via this character of the journalist, makes us feel like it’s gonna be O.K. Like, the truth is out!” Today, she says, “I’m not sure we treat newsmaking the same way.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The Paper” (2025–)“The Lowdown” (2025–)“All the President’s Men” (1976)“The China Syndrome” (1979)“Citizen Kane” (1941)“The Gilded Age” (2022–)“The Office” (2005–13)“‘The Paper’ Is Old News,” by Inkoo Kang (The New Yorker)Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources newsletter“Spotlight” (2015)“Succession” (2018–23)“My Undesirable Friends” (2025)404 MediaNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Last week, it was announced that Polymarket—a site where you can bet on basically anything, from the likelihood of a government shutdown to the winner of New York City’s mayoral race—will be allowed to operate in the U.S. The decision was the culmination of a broader trend: since 2018, some thirty-nine states have legalized sports betting, and the rise of online gambling has made the practice a part of daily life. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider how platforms like Polymarket and DraftKings have changed our relationship to what we’re wagering on. They also examine the way games of chance have been depicted in literature and film—and our enduring susceptibility, in art and otherwise, to the promise of a hot streak. “Gambling is a way for the individual to test themselves,” Schwartz says. “It comes back to this fundamental question everyone has about themselves, which is: do I got it, or don’t I?”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Shayne Coplan’s Big Bet Is Paying Off,” by Jen Wieczner (New York Magazine)“Online Gambling Is Changing Sports for the Worse,” by Jay Caspian Kang (The New Yorker)“Daniel Deronda,” by George Eliot“The Noble Hustle,” by Colson Whitehead“Rounders” (1998)“War and Peace,” by Leo Tolstoy“The Sopranos” (1999–2007)“Uncut Gems” (2019)“The Big Short” (2015)“To Catch a Thief” (1955)“Casino Royale” (2006)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Though the character known as Labubu has been around for a decade, the toy version—around six inches tall, sporting bunny ears and a demonic grin—is only just becoming a must-have accessory. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz join the trend and unbox their very own Labubu before diving into the history of such fads. They draw a distinction between collecting and speculating, from the seventeenth-century Dutch tulip mania through to the eBay-fuelled Beanie Baby craze of the nineteen-nineties and the far more recent rise and fall of non-fungible tokens. And they attempt to understand why this slightly unsettling children’s toy is now inspiring such intense reactions. “People were flooding my D.M.s, like, ‘This thing is the end of culture,’ ” Schwartz says. “This thing is not the end of culture. It’s a point on a line.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The Monsters,” by Kasing Lung“Where the Wild Things Are,” by Maurice Sendak“What the Labubu Obsession Says About Us,” by Jia Tolentino (The New Yorker)“A Dubai Chocolate Theory of the Internet” (“Search Engine”)“IRL Brain Rot and the Lure of the Labubu,” by Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker)“Little House on the Prairie,” by Laura Ingalls Wilder“Toy Story” (1995)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

In the early days of the Hollywood studio system, producers exerted far greater creative control than any individual director. Then, in the mid-twentieth century, a group of young French critics issued a cri du coeur that gave rise to the figure of the auteur: visionary filmmakers ranging from Jean-Luc Godard to Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson. In the final installment of this year’s Critics at Large interview series, Vinson Cunningham talks with fellow staff writer Richard Brody about the origins of auteur theory, and about the lengths to which directors have gone for artistic freedom in the decades since. They take Spike Lee’s body of work as a case study, considering his new movie “Highest 2 Lowest” and how his filmmaking sensibility reflects his singular view of the world. “Style is a funny thing in movies,” Brody says. “If it’s any good, it’s not inseparable from substance. It is substance.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The 400 Blows” (1959)“Breathless” (1960)“Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962,” by Andrew Sarris (Film Culture)“Circles and Squares,” by Pauline Kael (Film Quarterly)“Martin Scorsese on Making ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ ” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker)“The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013)“Spike Lee Comes Home,” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker)“Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” (2014)“Red Hook Summer” (2012)“A Great Film Reveals Itself in Five Minutes,” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker)“Highest 2 Lowest” (2025)“ ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ Marks a Conservative Pivot for Spike Lee,” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker)“Do the Right Thing” (1989)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Nineteenth-century Americans regarded Paris as a libertine paradise: a smorgasbord of food and fashion, of night life and sex. Today, the pull toward France endures, though the precise nature of its appeal has shifted. On the second in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes, Alexandra Schwartz talks with the staff writer Lauren Collins about her work as The New Yorker’s woman on the ground in France and the long lineage of Francophilic Americans—from Edith Wharton to James Baldwin and, yes, even “Emily.” The two consider how French femininity has been marketed to American women and how modern influencers transmit an incomplete picture of Paris. “Yes, it’s romantic, and, yes, it’s picturesque, but it’s also a big, loud, dirty, profane, complicated city that evolves and changes like everywhere else,” Collins says. “There’s a lot of misbegotten essentializing that happens when Americans start talking about France.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Ces restaurants qui gonflent l’addition des touristes américains,” by Mathieu Hennequin (Le Parisien)“Can Emmanuel Macron Stem the Populist Tide?,” by Lauren Collins (The New Yorker)“The Unlikely Rise of French Tacos,” by Lauren Collins (The New Yorker)“Dearest Edith,” by Janet Flanner (The New Yorker)“The Custom of the Country,” by Edith Wharton“Go Tell It on the Mountain,” by James Baldwin“Giovanni’s Room,” by James Baldwin“The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American,” by James Baldwin (The New York Times)“Emily in Paris” (2020–)“Sex and the City” (1998–2004)“French Women Don’t Get Fat,” by Mireille Guiliano“Bringing Up Bébé,” by Pamela DruckermanNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

On paper, a thirty-three-year-old socialist would seem an unlikely contender for mayor of New York City. But Zohran Mamdani’s campaign proved compelling enough to make him the front-runner to lead the largest city in America. On the first in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes, Naomi Fry talks with her fellow staff writer Eric Lach about the surprising protagonist of this year’s mayoral race. Together, they contextualize Mamdani’s persona within a long history of New York characters, from Batman to Bill de Blasio, and consider the hold these narratives have on observers within the city and beyond. “The history of New York City mayors is not a litany of successes and heroes. It’s mostly fuck-ups and rogues,” Lach says. “Often, it’s this tug-of-war between the machine and the reformer.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:Zohran Mamdani’s “Uganda Miss Me! (But I’ll Be Back Soon)”“Gangs of New York” (2002)“The Gangs of New York,” by Herbert Asbury“Low Life,” by Lucy Sante“Serpico” (1973)“The Dark Knight” (2008)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Two weeks ago, when Paramount cancelled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” insiders in Hollywood and Washington alike deemed the move suspicious: Colbert had just called his parent company’s payout to Trump a “big fat bribe” on air. Paramount, for its part, claims that the decision was purely financial—Colbert’s show is losing forty million dollars a year. But both the political and economic explanations reveal how the landscape of late night has changed since Johnny Carson’s day. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider Colbert’s body of work and the state of the genre more generally, from the so-called late-night wars of the nineties through to the modern challenge of making comedy in a country where nothing feels funny anymore. “Late-night hosting is an art, but it’s also business. So, if your job is to get as many eyeballs on you as is humanly possible, what do you do?” Schwartz says. “It’s not easy to have fun with the news, as it is. And if you are having fun with it, something may very well be wrong.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Strangers with Candy” (1999–2000)“The Daily Show” (1996–)“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” (2015–26)“The Staying Power of the ‘S.N.L.’ Machine” (The New Yorker)“Lessons from ‘Sesame Street’ ” (The New Yorker)“The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” (1962–92)“David Letterman’s Revolutionary Comedy,” by Emily Nussbaum (The New Yorker)“The Colbert Rapport,” by Emily Nussbaum (The New Yorker)“Carpool Karaoke” (2017–23)“What the Cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s ‘Late Show’ Means,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)“After Midnight” (2024–25)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Ari Aster’s wildly divisive new movie “Eddington” drops audiences back into the chaos of May, 2020: a moment when the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, the rise in conspiracy theories, and political strife shattered something in our society. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz situate “Eddington” in the lineage of “the indigenous American berserk,” a phrase coined by Philip Roth in his 1997 novel “American Pastoral.” They consider an array of works that have tried to depict moments of social rupture throughout the country’s history—and debate whether the exercise is ultimately a futile one. “I think when you’re dealing with the realm of the American berserk, the big risk is getting the bends,” Schwartz says. “You're trying to describe a warping. So how do you not get warped in the process?”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Eddington” (2025)“Writing American Fiction,” by Philip Roth (Commentary)“Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” by Tom Wolfe (Harper’s)“American Pastoral,” by Philip Roth“Natural Born Killers” (1994)“Benito Cereno,” by Herman Melville“The Bonfire of the Vanities,” by Tom Wolfe“Apocalypse Now” (1979)“Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse” (1991)“War Movies: What Are They Good For?” (The New Yorker)“Sorry to Bother You” (2018)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Audiences have been bemoaning the death of the romantic comedy for years, but the genre persists—albeit often in a different form from the screwballs of the nineteen-forties or the “chick flicks” of the eighties and nineties. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss their all-time favorite rom-coms and two new projects marketed as contemporary successors to the greats: Celine Song’s “Materialists” and Lena Dunham’s “Too Much.” Do these depictions of modern love—or at least the search for it—evoke the same breathless feeling as the classics do? “I wonder if the crisis in rom-coms has to do with a crisis in how adult women want to be or want to see themselves,” Schwartz says. “I think both of these projects are basically trying to speak to the fact that everyone's ideals are in question.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Sex, Love, and the State of the Rom-Com” (The New Yorker)“Materialists” (2025)“Too Much” (2025)“Working Girl” (1988)“You’ve Got Mail” (1998)“When Harry Met Sally” (1989)“Love & Basketball” (2000)“The Best Man” (1999)“Our Romance with Jane Austen” (The New Yorker)“Girls” (2012-17)“Adam’s Rib” (1949)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It’s a confusing time to travel. Tourism is projected to hit record-breaking levels this year, and its toll on the culture and ecosystems of popular vacation spots is increasingly hard to ignore. Social media pushes hoards to places unable to withstand the traffic, while the rise of “last-chance” travel—the rush to see melting glaciers or deteriorating coral reefs before they’re gone forever—has turned the precarity of these destinations into a selling point. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz explore the question of why we travel. They trace the rich history of travel narratives, from the memoirs of Marco Polo and nineteenth-century accounts of the Grand Tour to shows like Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” and HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Why are we compelled to pack a bag and set off, given the growing number of reasons not to do so? “One thing that’s really important for me as a traveller is the experience of being foreign,” Schwartz says. “I’m starting to realize that there are places I may never go, and this has actually made other people’s accounts of them, in the deeper sense, more important.”This episode originally aired on June 13, 2024. Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The New Tourist,” by Paige McClanahanThe “Lonely Planet” guidebooks“The Travels of Marco Polo,” by Rustichello da Pisa“Of Travel,” by Francis Bacon“The Innocents Abroad,” by Mark Twain“Self-Reliance,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson“Travels through France and Italy,” by Tobias Smollett“Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” (2013-18)“The White Lotus” (2021—)“Conan O’Brien Must Go” (2024)“It Just Got Easier to Visit a Vanishing Glacier. Is That a Good Thing?,” by Paige McClanahan (The New York Times)“The New Luxury Vacation: Being Dumped in the Middle of Nowhere,” by Ed Caesar (The New Yorker)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The word “diva” comes from the world of opera, where divinely talented singers have enraptured audiences for centuries. But preternatural gifts often go hand in hand with bad behavior—as in the case of Patti LuPone, the blunt Broadway dame whose remarks about fellow-actresses in a recent New Yorker Profile quickly became a source of scandal. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and guest host Michael Schulman examine the figure of the diva, from Miss Piggy to Maria Callas, and consider whether our culture still rewards such  personalities. “I don’t think we’ll ever stop being drawn to larger-than-life characters with messy, larger-than-life personal lives,” Schulman says. “There is a line that people can cross—but it’s constantly shifting.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“On ‘Succession,’ Jeremy Strong Doesn’t Get the Joke,” by Michael Schulman (The New Yorker)“Patti LuPone Is Done with Broadway—and Almost Everything Else,” by Michael Schulman (The New Yorker)“The Politics of the Oscar Race” (The New Yorker)“Evita” (1978)“Gypsy” (1959)“Company” (1970)“How Maria Callas Lost her Voice,” by Will Crutchfield (The New Yorker)“Liz & Dick” (2012)“The Muppets Take Manhattan” (1984)“The Problem With Ryan Murphy’s Wannabe Divas,” by Logan Scherer (The Atlantic)“Aretha Franklin’s American Soul,” by David Remnick (The New Yorker)“Feud: Bette and Joan” (2017)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices