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.
Black Bag’s committed spies
In Steven Soderbergh’s latest movie, two MI6 agents have the audacity to put their marriage first.
Who’s the real Mickey? Does it matter?
In Bong Joon Ho’s new satire, both versions of the title character are as expendable as the underclasses that fuel our capitalist system.
When nice guys are dangerous
Two recent buzzy, twisty thrillers put gender dynamics at the center of the drama.
Nosferatu and the horror of enlightenment
Robert Eggers’s film reminds us that much of what presents itself as common sense is just a contingent arrangement, one form of folklore instead of another.
Competing masculinities in the dojo
As Cobra Kai’s final season is about to air, we are living in the aftermath of the political backlash to The Karate Kid’s softer kind of power.
Who needs Roman imperial fantasies?
After watching Gladiator II, I turned elsewhere for a more joyful model of masculinity.
Coming of age with girl detectives
Like her genre foremothers, the teen sleuth in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder isn’t just solving a crime, she’s figuring out her place in the world.
The Wild Robot asks what makes us human
We are animals that need to overcome our instincts, robots that need to overcome our rationality.
What the theater can do
It’s hard to talk about the transformative power of being onstage without sounding ridiculous. Sing Sing and Ghostlight show us instead.
Truth, lies, and video
Civil War and Fly Me to the Moon share an awareness of how malleable and fragile our sense of shared truth is in a world dominated by images.
Babes revives the adult comedy
It recalls the raunchy movies of the early 2000s—even as it offers a fresh vision of what it means to grow up.
Genius and virtue
Wildcat is less a biopic than a luminous exploration of the tension in Flannery O’Connor’s artistic and spiritual life.
Fargo and Wicked Little Letters take on the patriarchy
It’s hard to dramatize the evils of patriarchy without falling into melodrama or historical difference.