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Critics at Large | The New Yorker
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Critics at Large is a weekly culture podcast from The New Yorker. Every Thursday, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss current obsessions, classic texts they’re revisiting with fresh eyes, and trends that are emerging across books, television, film, and more. The show runs the gamut of the arts and pop culture, with lively, surprising conversations about everything from Salman Rushdie to “The Real Housewives.” Through rigorous analysis and behind-the-scenes insights into The New Yorker’s reporting, the magazine’s critics help listeners make sense of our moment—and how we got here.
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Steven Spielberg’s Blockbusters
6d ago00:50:55Summary readyWhen “Jaws” hit theatres in 1975, no one—neither the studio executives involved nor the film’s twenty-six-year-old director, Steven Spielberg—was betting on its success. But it dominated at the box office and promptly revolutionized the way movies were promoted, distributed, and merchandised. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz trace how Spielberg inaugurated a new phenomenon in Hollywood: the blockbuster. He would tap his own playbook again and again with such hits as “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T.,” and “Jurassic Park,” all of which drew impressive audiences and profits. The hosts talk through his filmography, culminating in his new release, “Disclosure Day,” which both replicates and iterates on themes and techniques found in his earlier work. Though other directors may share his capacity for spectacle and action-packed set pieces, much of his appeal lies in his profound earnestness. “What Spielberg is so good at is bringing the human to the fore in these extreme, sci-fi circumstances,” Schwartz says. “And that’s what makes a great blockbuster.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Jaws” (1975)“Disclosure Day” (2026)“Minority Report” (2002)“Oscar Wars,” by Michael Schulman“What Went Wrong” ’s episode about “Jaws”“Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977)“Jurassic Park” (1993)“E.T.” (1982)“Alf” (1986-90)“Schindler’s List” (1993)“One Battle After Another” (2025)“American Journal,” by Robert Hayden“Heart of the Beast” (2026)“Sinners” (2025)“Nope” (2022)“Barbie” (2023)“Obsession” (2026)“Backrooms” (2026)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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
SummaryWhy We Cling to the Animal Kingdom
2w ago00:48:16Summary readySince the days of Aesop, stories about animals have been used to explore distinctly human values, virtues, and vices. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider such childhood classics as E. B. White’s “Stuart Little” and C. S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” series, as well as “The Sheep Detectives,” a recent entry in this canon that centers on a flock who learn poignant lessons about life and loss. Works of adult literature, too, have explored the animal-human bond. Our tendency to project onto animals translates to the real world in strange ways, with figures like Timmy the Whale and Punch the Monkey going viral on our social feeds even as our day-to-day lives are more detached from the natural world than ever before. But the distance between us can be instructive, too. “Reckoning with their similarity to us and also their total strangeness to us . . . that’s where works about animals really get me,” Schwartz says. “Not just as a direct transfer onto the human experience but also this other thing that really does enrich our lives: to be in contact with species that are not our own.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:Homer’s Odyssey“Stone Fox,” by John Reynolds Gardiner“The Mare,” by Mary Gaitskill“The Sheep Detectives” (2026)“Stuart Little,” by E. B. White “Bambi” (1942)“The Lion King” (1994) C. S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” Series“Tom and Jerry” (1940-67)Aesop’s Fables“Frederick,” by Leo Lionni“ ‘Wake Up Dead Man’ and the Whodunnit Renaissance” (The New Yorker)“Zootopia” (2016) “Why Earnestness Is Everywhere” (The New Yorker)“Babe” (1995)“Tiger King” (2020-21)“Monkey Business in ‘Chimp Crazy,’ ” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)I am Bunny on TikTokNew 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
SummaryI Need a Critic: June, 2026, Edition
3w ago00:49:31Summary readyThis week, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz kick off the summer months with a new installment of the Critics at Large advice series. Listeners’ questions run the gamut: a high-school economics teacher seeks films for his students which aren’t set in the world of finance; a caller from Iran looks for cultural works to help endure periods of extreme uncertainty; and two friends on the cusp of college graduation ask for recommendations to guide them in their next chapter. “Art is not a thing separate from our troubles or from our awareness of the insane contingencies of life,” Cunningham says. “It’s meant as a companion and a response to those. I think that’s shining through in some of these questions.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Sorry to Bother You” (2018)“My Architect: A Son’s Journey” (2003)“Les dites cariatides” (1984)“Twenty Minutes in Manhattan,” by Michael SorkinThe photography of Eugène AtgetThe music of the Notorious B.I.G., Heavy D, Fat Joe, and Big Pun“Sentimental Education,” by Gustave FlaubertVáclav Havel’s “Audience”“The Best of Everything,” by Rona Jaffe“How to Murder Your Life,” by Cat Marnell“Becoming a Centenarian,” by Calvin Tomkins (The New Yorker)“This Old Man,” by Roger Angell (The New Yorker)“Tabula Rasa,” by John McPhee (The New Yorker)“Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979)“Divorcing,” by Susan TaubesElena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels“Ghost World,” by Daniel Clowes“Frances Ha” (2012)“Asparagus” (1979)Roger Payne’s “Songs of the Humpback Whale”“Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction,” by J. D. SalingerThe poetry of Sylvia Plath, particularly “Tulips”Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America”“I Will,” by the Beatles“St. Judy’s Comet,” by Paul Simon“Sail Away Ladies,” by OdettaNew 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
SummaryOur Modern Glut of Choice
4w ago00:44:58Summary readyFor many of us, daily life is defined by a near-constant stream of decisions, from what to buy on Amazon to what to watch on Netflix. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider how we came to see endless selection as a fundamental right. The hosts discuss “The Age of Choice,” a book by the historian Sophia Rosenfeld, which traces how our fixation with the freedom to choose has evolved over the centuries. Today, an abundance of choice in one sphere often masks a lack of choice in others—and, with so much focus on individual rather than collective decision-making, the glut of options can contribute to a profound sense of alienation. “When all you do is choose, choose, choose, what you do is end up by yourself,” Cunningham says. “Putting yourself with people seems to be one of the salves.”This episode originally aired on March 13, 2025. Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Could Anyone Keep Track of This Year’s Microtrends?” by Danielle Cohen (The Cut)“The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life,” by Sophia Rosenfeld“The Federalist Papers,” by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay“What Does It Take to Quit Shopping? Mute, Delete and Unsubscribe,” by Jordyn Holman and Aimee Ortiz (The New York Times)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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
SummaryWhere Do Men Go from Here?
May 2100:51:23Summary readyThe phrase “toxic masculinity,” deployed ad nauseum over the past decade, now borders on cliché, but the fact that men are in some kind of crisis feels beyond dispute. Statistics on boys’ prospects are bleak, showing falling graduation rates, diminished employment opportunities, and dismal mental-health outcomes. Meanwhile, the manosphere has fanned the flames of these discontents. The question of what’s to be done is more pressing than ever. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider a new wave of texts that aims to diagnose men’s ills, and to offer a path forward. The men in these works fall, broadly, into two lanes: the damaged, sometimes violent types who are front and center in such series as Richard Gadd’s “Half Man,” and the softer, more emotionally attuned protagonists of shows like “Heated Rivalry” and “DTF St. Louis.” But this tidy schematic falls apart in real life—and, as looksmaxxers have taught us, obsessing over models of manhood may only compound the problem. “Usually, if I’m thinking about being a man, it is in a self-reproving or self-indicting way that is not helpful to the situation,” Cunningham says. “When you’re asking how to be a man, often the real answer is just how to be a person.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Half Man” (2026)“Magnolia” (1999)“Fight Club” (1999)“Heated Rivalry” (2025—)“‘Heated Rivalry,’ ‘Pillion,’ and the New Drama of the Closet” (The New Yorker)“Adolescence” (2025)“DTF St. Louis” (2026)“The New Masculinity of ‘DTF St. Louis,’ ” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)“Lord of the Flies” (2026)“Lord of the Flies,” by William Golding“Can Starting from Scratch Save ‘Vanderpump Rules’?” by Naomi Fry (The New Yorker)Clavicular’s appearance on “Impaulsive”“Why So Many Guys Are Obsessed with Testosterone,” by Azeen Ghorayshi (The New York Times)“Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere” (2026)“The Pitt” (2025—)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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
SummaryHow Romantasy Seduces Its Readers
May 1400:50:37Summary readyA few years back, novels classed as “romantasy”—a portmanteau of “romance” and “fantasy”—might have seemed destined to attract only niche appeal. But since the pandemic, the genre has proved nothing short of a phenomenon. Sarah J. Maas’s “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series has repeatedly topped best-seller lists, and Rebecca Yarros’s 2025 title “Onyx Storm” became the fastest-selling adult novel in decades. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by their fellow New Yorker staff writer Katy Waldman as they delve into the realm of romantasy themselves. Together, they consider some of the most popular entries in the genre, and discuss how monitoring readers’ reactions on BookTok, a literary corner of TikTok, allows writers to tailor their work to fans’ hyperspecific preferences. Often, these books are conceived and marketed with particular tropes in mind—but the key ingredient in nearly all of them is a sense of wish fulfillment. “The reason that I think they’re so powerful and they provide such solace to us is because they tell us, ‘You’re perfect. You’re always right. You have the hottest mate. You have the sickest powers,’ ” Waldman says. “I totally get it. I fall into those reveries, too. I think we all do.”This episode originally aired on February 13, 2025.Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?,” by Katy Waldman (The New Yorker)“The Song of the Lioness,” by Tamora Pierce“A Court of Thorns and Roses,” by Sarah J. Maas“Ella Enchanted,” by Gail Carson Levine“Fourth Wing,” by Rebecca Yarros“Onyx Storm,” by Rebecca Yarros“Crave,” by Tracy Wolff“Working Girl” (1988)“Game of Thrones” (2011-19)“The Vampyre,” by John Polidori“Dracula,” by Bram Stoker“Outlander” (2014–)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
SummaryThe Met Gala, “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” and the State of Style
May 700:49:34Summary readyIn the original “The Devil Wears Prada,” a hapless Andrea Sachs stumbles into the office of Miranda Priestly, the exacting editor of Runway magazine and a titan of the fashion world. The film, released in 2006, was adapted from a novel by the former Vogue staffer Lauren Weisberger, and it spun the glamour of the industry into a crowd-pleasing confection for the big screen. Two decades later, the atmosphere of its sequel is darker. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the reality-inflected elements of the new film, which finds Priestly and her team chasing clicks and catering to the whims of billionaires who might solve Runway’s financial woes. The question of billionaire influence was also present at this year’s Met Gala. The event’s lead sponsors were the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez Bezos, who reportedly donated ten million dollars to become honorary co-chairs. Attendees paid a hundred thousand dollars just to get in the door. Why, the hosts ask, does the gala still matter to the average fashion enthusiast? “It’s the one time where, divorced from utility and other reasons, it’s O.K. to just look at fashion,” Cunningham says. “I tend to defend our opportunities to just look at things that provoke pleasure.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics:The 2026 Met Gala“The Devil Wears Prada” (2006)“The Devil Wears Prada 2” (2026)“Guys Are Wearing Slutty Little Reading Glasses Now” (GQ)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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
SummaryWhat “Michael” Tries to Show—or Hide
Apr 3000:49:12Summary ready“Michael”—a new film, directed by Antoine Fuqua, charting Michael Jackson’s rise to fame—just had the best opening weekend in the history of bio-pics, proving that audiences are still eager to celebrate the King of Pop. The movie also ends, pointedly, before the first in a series of allegations of child sexual abuse that have tainted Jackson’s reputation ever since. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and their fellow staff writer Kelefa Sanneh consider how the unprecedented highs and horrific lows of Jackson’s life and career have made him a prism for modern ideas about stardom and power. Sanneh’s recent Profile of Fuqua details the Jackson estate’s involvement in the production, which resulted in a sanitized portrait of a deeply complex figure. Other works have assessed Jackson’s legacy more critically: the 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland” lays out, in granular detail, the claims of two of Jackson’s accusers. “It’s just such a dissonance, seeing these two texts in such close proximity,” Fry says. “The thing with ‘Michael’ is, it doesn’t separate the art from the artist. It separates the artist from the wrongdoing entirely.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Michael” (2026)Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous”“The Action-Film Director Who’s Taking On Michael Jackson,” by Kelefa Sanneh (The New Yorker)“Quiet on Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV” (2024)“I’m Glad My Mom Died,” by Jennette McCurdy“On Michael Jackson,” by Margo Jefferson“Leaving Neverland” (2019)Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall”“Justin Bieber, Pop Music’s Fallen Angel, Rises Again at Coachella,” by Vinson Cunningham (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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
SummaryWhy Earnestness is Everywhere
Apr 2300:48:01Summary readyCynicism is widely considered a defining quality of our conspiracy-addled, irony-poisoned age. But audiences and creatives alike now seem ready to cast it aside in favor of an attitude that’s long been out of style: earnestness. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz trace this trend from the outer-space buddy comedy “Project Hail Mary” to the real-life Artemis II mission, whose crew has spoken movingly about Earth as a “lifeboat” in the middle of a vast, mysterious universe. The hosts also consider two buzzy new books—Lena Dunham’s “Famesick,” and “Transcription,” by Ben Lerner—which find their authors turning to earnestness in midlife, after precocious beginnings. In this era of political, economic, and environmental precarity, younger generations, too, have come to celebrate big feelings, rather than living in fear of seeming cringe. “We’ve just seen too much awful stuff, and it's impossible to ironize,” Cunningham says. “The only sane response to that is to kind of sober up and say, ‘All right, what resources do humans still have?’ ”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Project Hail Mary” (2026)“The Pitt” (2025-)“Love on the Spectrum” (2022-)“Heated Rivalry” (2025-)“Famesick,” by Lena Dunham“Girls” (2012-17)“Transcription,” by Ben Lerner“Climbing Cringe Mountain With Gen Z” (The New York Times)“Amos & Boris,” by William SteigLászló Krasznahorkai’s Nobel Prize lectureNew 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
Summary“Beef,” “The Drama,” and the New Marriage Plot
Apr 1600:49:06Summary readyIn 2019, marriage rates in the United States hit their lowest point in a hundred and forty years. They still haven’t rebounded. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider how recent cultural offerings mirror this increasing dissatisfaction with matrimony. They discuss the new season of the Netflix anthology show “Beef,” which centers on two couples locked in a feud that gradually exposes the cracks in each relationship, and the A24 film “The Drama,” about a wedding that goes off the rails in spectacular fashion. They also consider real-life examples, including Lindy West’s recent memoir, “Adult Braces,” which has sparked a flurry of discourse about polyamory and open marriages. As such alternative ways of organizing our love lives enter the mainstream, the narrative around one of our oldest institutions is shifting, too. “I think we’re in a place where we’re trying to make marriage seem more like a positive choice, rather than an obvious obligation,” Schwartz says. “It’s a fascinating fiction that those who get married subscribe to, hoping that the fiction becomes true.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Beef” (2023-)“The White Lotus” (2021-)“The Drama” (2026)“Strangers,” by Belle Burden“A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides,” by Gisèle Pelicot“Madame Bovary,” by Gustave Flaubert“Parallel Lives,” by Phyllis Rose“Adult Braces,” by Lindy WestNew 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. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
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