The goosebumpy pleasure of Widow’s Bay
The Apple TV series knows the delights of small-town horror clichés. It also knows something about close communities and how they work.
An Odyssey without paganism
In Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation, the gods are almost entirely absent—and the hero is motivated by something like Christian ethics.
Obsession and the terror of losing control
A lot of commentary on the indie horror film has framed it as a meditation on Gen Z’s fear of commitment. But it has far more interesting things to say about coercion and freedom.
Karmic Beef
The second season of the Netflix anthology series imagines a way out of the cycle of poisonous envy.
Underground apocalypse
In three current series—Paradise, Silo, and Fallout—bunkers owned by billionaires dictate the options for post-apocalyptic existence.
The monster stories we need
Two very different Frankenstein movies share a central concern: If humans unleash monstrousness on the world, who are we to judge when our monsters turn against us?
The brutal ax of capitalism
In No Other Choice, the unemployed anti-hero turns to a life of crime to solve his economic woes. He’s not the only one.
The mischief of oppression
In The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho shows how political corruption and violence create an atmosphere of dread—along with situations so confusing they are almost funny.
The heaving, howling, rolling, jumping ecstasy of Ann Lee
I know “Shaker musical” sounds like a prompt at a bad improv class. But Mona Fastvold’s new film is wild and wondrous.
The mother load
In Die My Love, Jennifer Lawrence’s character seems to have intuited an invisible straitjacket of maternal expectations, and she is desperate to shake it off.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s biggest question
One Battle After Another explores what it means to find agency in a world we can’t control.
The art of marital crisis
Splitsville and The Roses arrive at a time when the institution of marriage itself is on the rocks.
Carmy Berzatto’s will to change
The protagonist of The Bear wants to believe that art and excellence don’t require trauma and abuse.
Modern love
At first, Materialists seems like a brutal reckoning with our metric-obsessed age. But director Celine Song has bigger themes in mind.
The costs of rebellion
Andor demonstrates that Star Wars is still one of our most compelling fictional accounts of imperial power—and the various means of resisting it.
Looking for healing in “the pitt”
The ER in Scott Gemmill’s medical drama is a virus-infected Petri dish of all that ails the body politic.