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Rachel Handler

Staff Writer
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@rachel_handler
rachel.handler@nymag.com

Rachel Handler is a features writer at Vulture and New York Magazine who covers movies, TV, music, pop culture, and bucatini. She was nominated for a James Beard Award in 2020.

  1. best of the fests
    The 14 Best Movies We Saw at Venice and TIFF This YearFall festival season has brought a bounty of awards contenders, star-making performances, and must-see masterpieces.
  2. venice 2023
    Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border Is an Urgent Warning“The Holocaust was a vaccination for humanity, especially for Europe, against nationalism and racism. And now it’s evaporating.”
  3. venice 2023
    The Hitmen, Horny Gals, and Hypermasc Bros of VeniceThis year’s film lineup hinted at a collective unconscious obsessed by performed masculinity, killing people for money, horniness, and Willem Dafoe.
  4. venice 2023
    Sofia Coppola’s Elvis Movie Brings Priscilla Presley to TearsThe subject of the dark, complex biopic called Priscilla “amazing” and reaffirmed that the rock star was the love of her life.
  5. venice 2023
    Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s New Movie Is an Anti-Capitalist Parable With a Shocking EndEvil Does Not Exist is a smaller and simpler movie than Drive My Car, and can best be described as a sort of environmentalist folktale.
  6. venice film festival 2023
    Is There Anything Léa Can’t Seydoux?In her latest film at Venice, The Beast, Seydoux stars in three different genres at once.
  7. venice 2023
    We Are Asking the Wrong Question About Bradley Cooper’s Maestro NoseThe more fun question is: Are noses to Bradley Cooper what feet are to Quentin Tarantino?
  8. venice 2023
    The Vibes Are Off at VeniceBring back the movie stars … before it’s too late.
  9. venice 2023
    Emma Stone Is Masterfully, Shamelessly Sexual in Poor ThingsHer character in Yorgos Lanthimos’s latest movie is her best role yet, one that is primed to earn her another Oscar nomination.
  10. venice 2023
    Adam Driver Wasn’t Allowed to Actually Drive on the Ferrari SetAt the film’s Venice press conference, Driver also questioned why big companies like Netflix and Amazon can’t meet SAG’s demands.
  11. venice 2023
    What’s at Venice Film Festival? Fast Cars, Fake Noses.And (some) movie stars.
  12. fall preview 2023
    Finally, the Lesbian Incel Comedy America Has Been Waiting ForHow NYU friends Ayo Edebiri, Rachel Sennott, and Emma Seligman made Bottoms — and won over Hollywood along the way.
  13. emergency discussion
    The Brain-Breaking Dissonance of Red, White & Royal BlueUma Thurman’s accent. Surprise Truvada sponcon. The tonal equivalent of a Disney Channel original gay porn. Make it all make sense.
  14. gross mischaracterization
    Aidan’s Jacket: A LamentSomething is not right here.
  15. roundtable
    ‘The Gayest Gasp of All Time’The cast of Theater Camp discuss the roles they were born to play and the Broadway divas they’d body-swap.
  16. idol chatter
    Da’Vine Joy Randolph on What Was and Wasn’t Supposed to Happen in The Idol“It’s everyone’s desire and intention to do a season two, and until we hear differently, that’s the plan.”
  17. encounter
    Who’s Afraid of Patti LuPone?The Broadway legend on bringing the horror to Ari Aster’s latest smothering-mother fantasy Beau Is Afraid.
  18. abel called
    All Your Burning Questions About The Idol, AnsweredLike: Is Sam Levinson and the Weeknd’s new HBO show starring Lily-Rose Depp actually “sexual torture porn,” or nah?
  19. cannes 2023
    Cannes Is Over. Now What?The 2023 film festival has come to an end. Here are the movies to watch.
  20. cannes 2023
    Cannes Can’t Take Its Eyes Off Sandra HüllerAn actress known for her superability to suppress the emotions of a composed character is in not one, but two incredible festival films.
  21. cannes 2023
    90 Minutes of Jane Fonda Confessing the Truth About HollywoodOn getting drunk to film Barbarella, competing with Katharine Hepburn, dealing with Jean-Luc Godard’s bullshit, and quitting the Book Club movies.
  22. cannes 2023
    In the Bathroom Lines at the Super-Parties of CannesDescending into the festival darkness with Harrison Ford, The Idol’s cast, Leo, Marty, and more.
  23. a long talk
    ‘I Felt More Comfortable Raging in English’Mining grief, angels, and Einstein’s ghost with France’s elusive Christine and the Queens.
  24. cannes 2023
    Sam Levinson on The Idol: ‘Things That Might Be Revolutionary Are Taken Too Far’He says the nudity and sexuality of his new HBO show are “true to what almost every pop star is doing these days.”
  25. cannes 2023
    ‘Pedro, This Is Like the Cover of Playgirl’An afternoon at Cannes with the young hunks of Pedro Almodóvar’s gay cowboy movie, Strange Way of Life.
  26. cannes 2023
    A Chat With Cate Blanchett at Cannes About Faking Her Own DeathBlanchett and director Warwick Thornton cheerfully discussed eradicating their identities, staring at themselves on Zoom, and Pedro Almodóvar.
  27. cannes 2023
    Pedro Almodóvar Can’t Talk About His New Movie (But It Will Be About Death)The director says he is following up his gay-cowboy short with a mysterious film “about two women in a very intimate situation.”
  28. cannes 2023
    Pedro Almodóvar Just Might Turn His Gay Western Into a Full-Length Film“I should probably make it,” the director said after Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke lit up Cannes with their sexy cowboy short.
  29. cannes 2023
    ‘If You Thought That It’s a Festival For Rapists, You Wouldn’t Be Here’Cannes, Maïwenn, and Johnny Depp spend opening night of the film festival defending Jeanne du Barry.
  30. cannes 2023
    What’s at Cannes? Scorsese, a Gay Western, and Cate Blanchett As a Renegade Nun.All the movies (and one TV show) we’re excited to see at 2023’s Festival de Cannes.
  31. pop culture syllabus
    The Rachel Weisz Gay IndexFive performances that show the actress’s decades-long ascent to queer perfection.
  32. exit interview
    What Is It About These Identical Twins?Rachel Weisz and Alice Birch on adapting Dead Ringers for TV and the gynecologist siblings that keep us coming back.
  33. look what you made them do
    ‘It Made Me Believe That Love Wasn’t Real Anymore. And I Puked.’Swifties on Cornelia Street are taking the Joe Alwyn breakup news as well as you’d expect.
  34. profile
    Caroline Polachek Loves MessFor her mucky, bold, feminine new album, the singer gets primal.
  35. the jlowicc
    An Attempt to Make Sense of the Jennifer Lopez Wedding Industrial-Complex CanonThe JLOWICC is a complex universe filled with dead mothers, worried best friends, sad dinners, and machetes.
  36. sundance 2023
    22 Movies We Can’t Wait to See at Sundance 2023From Cat Person (starring Cousin Greg) to the new Nicole Holofcener to an Ottessa Moshfegh–Anne Hathaway collaboration and more.
  37. profile
    Allison Williams Comes AliveThe star of the already viral M3gan has made a career of subverting her own image.
  38. role call
    Elizabeth Hurley Answers Every Question We Have About BedazzledShe is an irreverent delight in a role that seems written specifically as a commentary on her public image.
  39. vulture lists
    The Best Horror to Stream As You’re Falling AsleepScience says this is a bad idea. Screw science.
  40. close reads
    Netflix’s Falling for Christmas Is a Dante’s Inferno-esque AllegoryIt’s the only reading of the film and its title that makes any sense.
  41. dear diary
    Bed HabitsOne insomniac’s descent into the world of sleep research to understand what screens before bed are doing to our brains.
  42. exit interview
    ‘I Couldn’t Believe the Things I Was Aspiring to Be’For Selena Gomez, watching herself through the lens of My Mind & Me documentarian Alek Keshishian was shocking, upsetting, and necessary.
  43. hairy styles
    Ranking the Half-Ponytails of House of the DragonSometimes you’re on top, sometimes you’re on the bottom … in this gorgeous game of thrones we call life.
  44. let’s do it again
    The 102 Best Movie Sequels of All TimeWho in the world wanted a Top Gun sequel? Not even Tom Cruise, but that didn’t stop Maverick from getting made and soaring in our ranks.
  45. encounter
    ‘The Gays Are Here’Titanique, a jukebox fantasia that imagines Céline Dion survived the Titanic, has found its audience.
  46. putting the atoms together
    ‘No Aliens, No Spaceships, No Invasion of Earth’An oral history of Contact, the sci-fi movie that defied Hollywood norms and made it big anyway.
  47. exit interview
    Peter Strickland Wants the Work That Hacks Are Getting“I don’t see hack as a dirty word,” says the director of Flux Gourmet, an empathetic look at the cost of good art and the perils of human digestion.
  48. exit interview
    David Cronenberg Explains HimselfHe says his latest film Crimes of the Future works on multiple levels. “But I really do think we’re kind of destroying the earth.”
  49. cannes 2022
    The Best Movies at Cannes Broke Through the BleaknessThe film festival was full of doomed protagonists, graphic murders, and children driven to crime. But a handful of movies were hopeful, too.
  50. cannes 2022
    Cronenberg’s Cannes ComebackThe director’s stomach-turning new movie has him back in the festival’s good graces.
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