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The New Yorker

Books & Culture

The New Yorker Interview

What George Miller Has Learned in Forty-five Years of Making “Mad Max” Movies

In a series of conversations, the director of “Furiosa” explains why silent films have the best action, audiences are seldom wrong, and his wife is always right.
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The Weekend Essay

How to Live Forever

The simplest, most foolproof way to extend life is to do so backward, by adding years in reverse.
Cultural Comment

Ilana Glazer’s “Babes” Joins a Lineage of Pregnancy Comedies

In the past decade, pregnancy has proved to be the ideal vehicle for raunch—and for observations on class and social mores.
Cultural Comment

“The Idea of You” and the Notion of the Hot Mom

Anne Hathaway, as Solène, is a vision of relatability, self-sufficiency, and poise, in a film that proves the rom-com isn’t dead.
Infinite Scroll

Who Wins and Who Loses When We Share a Meme

Two new books by art-world authors explore online shareability and come to different conclusions about what creators stand to gain.

Books

Under Review

The Best Books We’ve Read in 2024 So Far

Our editors and critics review notable new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Books

Can Forgetting Help You Remember?

A neuropsychologist says that we’re thinking about memory all wrong.
Books

Class Consciousness for Billionaires

We used to think the rich had a social function. What are they good for now?
Books

Briefly Noted

“Revolusi,” “Women and the Piano,” “Lucky,” and “Piglet.”

Movies

The Current Cinema

The Madly Captivating Urban Sprawl of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis”

After a thirteen-year absence, a great American director returns with an ambitious vision of a city—and a world—in need of renewal.
The Front Row

How Hindsight Distorts Our View of the Beatles in “Let It Be”

Usually seen as a document of the band’s breakup, the documentary, newly restored by Peter Jackson, is just as much a record of freewheeling inspiration.
The Front Row

How Does “Challengers” Make a Love Triangle Feel So Empty?

The fussy structure of Luca Guadagnino’s film dissipates the erotic charge on which the drama relies.
The Current Cinema

The Beautifully Unnerving Gaze of “Evil Does Not Exist”

The Japanese filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi follows his Oscar-winning “Drive My Car” with a hauntingly ambiguous drama of nature and capitalism in conflict.

Food

The Food Scene

The Glittering Pleasure of a Perfect Raw Bar

Penny, in the East Village, has a polished, understated swagger that somehow makes the oysters taste even better.
The Food Scene

Blanca Is Not for Beginners

At the reopened restaurant behind Roberta’s, the Chile-born chef Victoria Blamey offers flavors that are strong, unexpected, and occasionally disorienting.
Photo Booth

When Babies Rule the Dinner Table

In the past two decades, American parents have started to ditch the purées and give babies more choice—and more power—at mealtime. 
Page-Turner

Fifteen Essential Cookbooks

The kitchen guides that New Yorker writers and editors can’t do without.
Listen to lively debates about the art of the moment.Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts »
Photo Booth

The View from Palestinian America

In Kholood Eid’s photographs of Missouri, taken six months into the war in Gaza, the quiet act of documenting life is a kind of protest against erasure.

Television

On Television

Jerrod Carmichael Finds the Outer Limits of Confessional Comedy

Through an uncanny hybrid of access journalism and fourth-wall breaking, the comedian created an HBO series that was impossible to look away from.
On Television

“The Contestant” Is More Than a Cautionary Tale

The new Hulu documentary charts the rise of one of the earliest reality-TV stars and the ethically queasy production choices that cemented his fame—but it’s elevated by its interest in what came afterward.
On Television

“The Sympathizer” Has an Identity Crisis

The HBO adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel is part espionage thriller, part war drama, and part Hollywood satire—wild genre shifts that come at the expense of its protagonist’s interiority.
On Television

“Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show” Is Exhibitionism as Art

Two years after “Rothaniel,” the comedian has committed another moving—and deeply entertaining—act of self-exposure.

The Theatre

The Theatre

The Chilling Truth Pictured in “Here There Are Blueberries”

Moisés Kaufman’s play dramatizes the discovery of a photo album of Nazis at leisure at Auschwitz, and the reckoning it provoked.
The Theatre

Three Broadway Shows Put Motherhood in the Spotlight

Paula Vogel’s “Mother Play,” Shaina Taub’s “Suffs,” and Amy Herzog’s “Mary Jane” strike back at the mother-as-monster dramatic trope.
The Theatre

“Stereophonic” and “Cabaret” Turn Up the Volume on Broadway

David Adjmi’s cult-hit play features seventies-inspired rock songs by Will Butler, while Eddie Redmayne presides over a demonic version of the Kit Kat Club.
The Theatre

Ralph Fiennes Sidles His Way Into Power as Macbeth

A hit British production of Shakespeare’s ever-timely tragedy arrives in D.C.

Music

Pop Music

The Anxious Love Songs of Billie Eilish

Much of the artist’s new album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” is about wanting a relationship but failing, in some fundamental way, to sustain closeness with another person.
Critics at Large

Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and the Benefits of Beef

A feud between two of the biggest names in rap quickly escalated into a mutual smear campaign. How did a conflict based in craft become one that was about so much more?
Culture Desk

New Releases Make Old Jazz Young Again

Rediscovered archival concerts—and one recent one—offer important revelations.
Musical Events

Revisiting Composers Suppressed by the Nazis

The Musica Non Grata series, in Prague, explores the glittering, elusive world of Alexander Zemlinsky.

More in Culture

Goings On

Richard Brody on Hong Sangsoo’s Stories of Artists in Crisis

Also, Kelela’s electronic R. & B., DanceAfrica at BAM, the New Group’s “All of Me,” and more.
Postscript

Alice Munro Reinvigorated the Short Story

Working with the author, who has died, at ninety-two, was both a thrill and a lesson in intentionality.
On Television

“Baby Reindeer” and “Under the Bridge” Are Stranger Than Fiction

The two streaming series grapple with horrific real-life crimes—and with the complexity of the relationship between perpetrators and victims.
A Critic at Large

The Wacky and Wonderful World of the Westminster Dog Show

A canine campaign can run to hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention all the brushing, trimming, blow-drying, and styling products. Did you think it was easy being top dog?
The New Yorker Interview

Amy Herzog Wants You to Enter Into the Strangeness of Caregiving

The playwright on the new production of her play “Mary Jane,” which stars Rachel McAdams as the mother of a two-year-old born with serious medical conditions.
Postscript

The Beautiful Rawness of Steve Albini

The producer was uncompromising in his opposition to the commercialization of music. That might seem today like a Gen X relic—or it might seem kind of awesome.
Personal History

Looking at Art with Peter Schjeldahl

Recalling a friendship with The New Yorker’s late art critic.
Weekend Essay

Swimming with My Daughters

It was so reasonable—why couldn’t we want different things? Two could go into the water and one could stay on the shore. But I didn’t want to leave her there.
Cultural Comment

Drake, Kendrick Lamar, and Our Moment of Bad Reading

The once-upon-a-time defense of the poetics of rap has been ceded to the millennial mind of genius.com, taking every syllable as ripe for mundane exegesis.