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Review

  1. theater review
    The Shark Is Broken Goes Chumming for Your AffectionIan Shaw’s play bemoans big action movies’ death grip on the culture — while also venerating the voracious progenitor of them all.
    By Jackson McHenry
  2. movie review
    The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Have Never Looked BetterThe easygoing Mutant Mayhem is a marvel of animation.
    By Alison Willmore
  3. movie review
    Meg 2: The Trench Should Have Been StupiderIt’s all ridiculous and, in an alternate universe, it might have even been genuinely entertaining.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  4. movie review
    Passages’ Bad Boyfriend Only Leaves You Wanting MoreDespite its love triangle, Passages isn’t about polyamory—it’s about a man who elides his awfulness under the guise of urban sophistication.
    By Alison Willmore
  5. movie review
    A Helpful Reminder Never to Underestimate Walton GogginsVenice has been filled with lots of big, bold, showy turns. Then there’s Goggins quietly yanking our heartstrings by simply being present.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  6. theater review
    You Made a Musical … Out of a DeLorean?Back to the Future: The Musical is a carefully faithful spectacle.
    By Jackson McHenry
  7. tv review
    Heartstopper Can’t Stop Asking If You’re Okay With ThisAs the tender teen romance series extends outward, it starts to feel notably careful, like it’s been written from a defensive stance.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  8. album review
    Travis Scott Is Raging Into OblivionOn Utopia, the rapper is too scared to mess with the blueprint.
    By Craig Jenkins
  9. theater review
    Pregaming With Three Postcollege Brats (Plus a Dog) at Toros“The play keeps reminding you it’s a performance, which is nice in a time when many shows feel like they just want to be adapted into film or TV.”
    By Jackson McHenry
  10. theater review
    The Epic and Hyperspecific in Half-God of Rainfall and Let’s Call Her PattyThe gods shoot hoops; Rhea Perlman chops onions.
    By Jackson McHenry
  11. movie review
    A Few Decent Laughs Can’t Save Haunted MansionDisney’s new theme-park movie is a hot mess, even if it’s a sporadically entertaining one.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  12. movie review
    Communing With the Dead Just to Feel AliveThe new A24 horror movie Talk to Me is an impressively slick piece of work, from two button-pushers who came up on the internet.
    By Alison Willmore
  13. theater review
    The Cottage Needs More Doors to SlamLaura Bell Bundy and Eric McCormack lead a too-tidy farce.
    By Jackson McHenry
  14. theater review
    Notes on Teamwork: Flex and Orpheus DescendingTwo midsummer trips to the South.
    By Jackson McHenry
  15. theater review
    Here Lies Love Is an Unsettlingly Good TimeA show that portrays Imelda Marcos as blithe naïf and corrupt co-tyrant—and also enabler of a rousing dance party.
    By Jackson McHenry
  16. movie review
    Oppenheimer Is a Tragedy of Operatic GrandeurChristopher Nolan’s movie about the invention of the atomic bomb is almost too big to wrap your head around.
    By Alison Willmore
  17. movie review
    We Shouldn’t Have to Grade Barbie on a CurveGreta Gerwig made a weird movie based on a famous toy line. Should that be enough?
    By Alison Willmore
  18. endings
    Project Greenlight Is Great TV About Making a Not-Great MovieOnce again, an attempt to show off young Hollywood talent becomes an unwitting document of deep and pervasive fractures across the industry.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  19. movie review
    Theater Camp Is Too Sweet to Take Issue WithOkay, maybe one or two quibbles.
    By Alison Willmore
  20. movie review
    Bird Box Barcelona Doesn’t Have the Guts to Tell This StoryThe Netflix sequel is an exercise in sadism but not the good kind.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  21. movie review
    Being Young in a World That’s AfireChristian Petzold’s latest movie follows 20-somethings to a beach house near to an ongoing forest fire.
    By Alison Willmore
  22. podcasts
    Dua Lipa and the the Middlebrow Pop Intellectual PodcastAt Your Service aspires to be a Fresh Air for the jet set. Does it work?
    By Nicholas Quah
  23. movie review
    Joy Ride Never Really Cuts LooseThe R-rated comedy is ready to make jokes about threesomes and drug smuggling but can’t bring itself to lean into anything truly discomfiting.
    By Alison Willmore
  24. tv review
    Last Call Sees What Most True Crime MissesLoving yet full of palpable fury, HBO’s docuseries will make you deeply sad, then even sadder that more true-crime stories aren’t told this way.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  25. movie review
    A Familiar Magic Trick Executed to PerfectionTom Cruise does what he does in Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One. He is very good at what he does.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  26. movie review
    This Might Be the Strangest Movie of the YearRuby Gillman, Teenage Kraken seems like a trifling dose of high-concept sweetness, but it’s truly absurd in all sorts of unexpected ways.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  27. movie review
    Nimona Was Worth the WaitAfter multiple delays and a studio shutdown, the film arrives on Netflix with something specific to say about its queer characters and the status quo.
    By Alison Willmore
  28. movie review
    Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Is Too Entertaining to DismissA movie about going back in time turns out to be something of a time machine itself.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  29. theater review
    A Hamlet in the Park That Puzzles the WillKenny Leon’s production gestures at a lot without capturing any one thing.
    By Jackson McHenry
  30. theater review
    Dropping by the Local Nazis: Alex Edelman’s Just for UsPlus: Liz Kingsman’s One Woman Show, and the state of solo comedy meta-theater.
    By Jackson McHenry
  31. movie review
    No Hard Feelings Makes It Look EasyJennifer Lawrence goes over the top in the most delightfully discomfiting way.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  32. theater review
    Once Upon a One More Time Bungles Britney on BroadwayIt’s not the way I planned it.
    By Jackson McHenry
  33. tv review
    The Bear Is a Different AnimalGood-bye to the restaurant known as the Beef. Hello to a looser, lighter season two.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  34. art review
    The Subversive Self-Portraits of Iiu Susiraja“Being blank is the same as being real,” she has said.
    By Jerry Saltz
  35. movie review
    Extraction 2 Is Trying So HardMainly, it’s all just neat — impressively mounted and increasingly meaningless.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  36. movie review
    The Blackening Stretches a Funny Sketch Into a Less Funny FeatureThe premise at the center of this horror-comedy is still great.
    By Alison Willmore
  37. movie review
    Wes Anderson Has Gone MadHis new movie, Asteroid City, brings a necessary madness to the meticulous director’s method, and it amounts to a masterpiece.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  38. movie review
    Pixar’s Messy Metaphor for Interracial RomanceElemental is the story of what happens when fire meets water, falls in love, and turns into immigrant stereotypes.
    By Alison Willmore
  39. theater review
    Physicians, Preen Thyselves: The DoctorA play about the self-serving sanctimony of the newly canceled.
    By Jackson McHenry
  40. movie review
    The Impersonality of Ari Aster’s Most Personal FilmThe Hereditary director, never a horror guy, has left the genre behind for Beau Is Afraid — so why does his new film feel less open?
    By Alison Willmore
  41. movie review
    Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Is Ready to Be Consumed and ForgottenFighting robots are back, but does anyone really care?
    By Bilge Ebiri
  42. movie review
    Flamin’ Hot Has an Unintentionally Grim MessageThis corporate fairy tale, directed by Eva Longoria, is resolutely feel-good in a way that starts to feel bad.
    By Alison Willmore
  43. theater review
    Patterns of Addiction in Days of Wine and Roses and Wet BrainOne decorous, one unleashed.
    By Jackson McHenry
  44. theater review
    Death Comes to the Reunion in The ComeuppanceHigh-school friends, pregaming with jungle juice and angst.
    By Jackson McHenry
  45. movie review
    Past Lives Is Tasteful, Understated, and UnconvincingCeline Song’s directorial debut reaches for wistful romances but ends up just feeling calculated.
    By Alison Willmore
  46. movie review
    Is a Movie Called The Boogeyman Allowed to Be This Bleak?Rob Savage’s Stephen King adaptation is visually compelling but narratively inert.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  47. movie review
    The Joyous Spectacle of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-VerseAside from the “to be continued” ending, the new Spider-Verse is breathtaking.
    By Alison Willmore
  48. theater review
    Knock-Knock: Grey House Brings Horror Tropes to BroadwayIf you find Laurie Metcalf in a cabin in the woods, don’t go in.
    By Jackson McHenry
  49. endings
    Succession Made You Decide“Who will win?” is a question as appealing and empty as Tom and Shiv’s apartment. The much harder one has always been “What kind of show is this?”
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  50. movie review
    Sydney Sweeney Is Unreally Great in RealityThe Euphoria star plays whistleblower Reality Winner in an HBO film that turns the actual FBI interrogation transcript into a thriller.
    By Alison Willmore
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