Pop Culture Happy Hour

Watch This: It Was Just An Accident

The Iranian film It Was Just an Accident enters Oscars season with the wind at its back. It won the top prize at Cannes, a raft of other awards and has landed on a lot of top ten lists. The movie bears out those accolades. Directed by Jafar Panahi, it?s a tense, volatile, often darkly funny movie about what happens when a former political prisoner runs into a man he?s almost convinced is the one who tortured him and other prisoners.

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2026-01-21
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The Rip

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck share the screen again in new Netflix film, The Rip. Similar to the pulpy, mid-budget cop movies we used to get, The Rip is about a team of cops who are trying to take a huge stash of money from a drug cartel. But that work is not only dangerous, but also complicated as they encounter more money than they expected. The cast also includes Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, and Kyle Chandler.

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2026-01-20
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28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and What?s Making Us Happy

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple picks up where 28 Years Later left off ? in a world of zombie-like infecteds and vigilantes that turn out to be a murderous cult. Ralph Fiennes returns as Dr. Kelson, who makes an unlikely friend in his medical refuge slash memorial site slash bone temple.

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2026-01-16
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Agatha Christie?s Seven Dials

The new Netflix series Agatha Christie?s Seven Dials centers on lesser known mystery solving protagonist Lady Eileen Brent (Mia McKenna-Bruce). It?s got all the familiar cozy mystery trappings like a manor house, snobby suspects, stiff upper lips and lots of secrets. Based on an early Christie novel, the show also features Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham-Carter.

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2026-01-15
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Hijack

Idris Elba is in full action hero mode in the Apple TV series Hijack. He stars as a corporate business negotiator onboard an airplane that is taken hostage by an eclectic bunch of assailants with mysterious motives. The series is very fun and very silly. Hijack just came back for a second season, so we thought it was the perfect time to revisit our conversation about the series.

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2026-01-14
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Our Dream TV Crossovers

There have been many TV crossovers over the years, but it?s a tricky balance to get right ? for every mashup that feels organic, there are plenty more that amount to little other than weird stunts. So we decided to dream up the ultimate TV crossovers: Gilmore Girls and Nashville, Abbott Elementary and The Leftovers, Only Murders in the Building and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and The Bear and Happy Endings.

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2026-01-13
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People We Meet On Vacation and What's Making Us Happy

The new Netflix rom-com People We Meet On Vacation is about best friends Poppy (Emily Bader) and Alex (Tom Blyth) who have gone on annual trips together since meeting in college. But there's always been something between them that's not quite platonic, and reconnecting at a wedding just might bring it to the surface. Based on the beloved Emily Henry novel, the movie?s got travel, banter, and even kissing in the rain. But does it capture the charm of the book?

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2026-01-09
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Sabrina Carpenter and the Embarrassing Truth of Dating Men

What's it like to date a man? Ask Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Dean, or your friends, and you might hear it's a struggle. Today we?re bringing you an episode of NPR?s It?s Been a Minute. Host Brittany Luse and NPR Music Editor Hazel Cills break down a phenomenon called ?heteropessimism.?

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2026-01-08
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No Other Choice

No Other Choice is a new bleak comedy about a man (Lee Byung-hun) at a crossroads. After losing his job at a paper company, he resorts to desperate, unhinged measures to get a new job. He tracks down the other candidates and eliminates the competition, one by one. Directed by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, The Handmaiden), it?s filled with great performances and truly masterful action set pieces.

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2026-01-07
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Stranger Things

After five seasons and almost ten years, the saga of Netflix?s Stranger Things has reached its end. In a two-hour finale, we found out what happened to our heroes (including Millie Bobby Brown and Finn Wolfhard) when they set out to battle the forces of evil. The final season had new faces and new revelations, along with moments of friendship and conflict among the folks we've known and loved since the night Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) first disappeared. But did it stick the landing?

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2026-01-06
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2026 Resolutions and What?s Making Us Happy

Hope springs eternal, and that is nowhere more true than in the realm of New Year?s Resolutions. Today, we give ourselves goals for 2026. And because we believe in accountability, we?ll tell you how well we stuck to our resolutions for 2025.

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2026-01-02
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2026 Pop Culture Predictions

What does 2026 have in store for pop culture? Today, we?re back for another year of pop culture predictions. We?ll touch on A.I., the future of RuPaul?s Drag Race, and what?s to come for the Law & Order Universe. Plus, we check in on our prognosticating for 2025 and see how things worked out.

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2025-12-31
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2025 Best Video Games

If you?re anything like us, you spend a fair amount of your screen time playing video games. Whether you like combat, horror, or peacefully going over archival research, NPR?s roundup of best games of 2025 is a helpful guide to find something that?s just right for you. Today we?re talking about some of the best video games featured including Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hades II, Silent Hill f, Butcher?s Creek and The Roottrees Are Dead.

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2025-12-30
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2025 Books We Love

NPR?s Books We Love is a roundup of the best books from the past year, sorted and tagged to help you find exactly what you?re looking for. This year we?ve got hundreds of book recommendations, so today, we?re highlighting some of our favorites ? including Actress of a Certain Age by Jeff Hiller, The Ten Year Affair by Erin Somers, and Cannon by Lee Lai.

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2025-12-29
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Anaconda

The new Anaconda movie is a meta reimagining in which Jack Black and Paul Rudd play aspiring filmmakers who attempt to make? a meta reimagining of Anaconda. It?s not quite a reboot, it?s not quite a sequel, and it?s played for laughs.

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2025-12-26
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Marty Supreme and What?s Making Us Happy

The new movie Marty Supreme asks, can Timothée Chalamet play a supremely annoying character and still keep us interested from beginning to end? He stars as a working-class heel aiming to become a table tennis champion in the 1950s and features an eclectic supporting cast that includes Gwyneth Paltrow and Tyler, the Creator.

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2025-12-24
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Best Christmas Gift I Ever Received

What's the best Christmas gift you ever received? You probably didn't have to think about it; you knew it in your bones. Today, in this encore episode, we're talking about the actual, tangible gift you found waiting for you under the tree and still think about it from time to time.

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2025-12-23
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The Housemaid

The twisty thriller The Housemaid stars Sydney Sweeney as a newly hired live-in housekeeper to Amanda Seyfried?s wealthy housewife. Both women have dark secrets, and their dynamic goes downhill real fast. It?s directed by Paul Feig of Bridesmaids and A Simple Favor, so you know it?s going to be a bizarre, fun ride.

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2025-12-22
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Avatar: Fire And Ash and What?s Making Us Happy

In Avatar: Fire and Ash, James Cameron?s saga continues in a visually stunning movie full of epic battles, uneasy alliances, human assimilation, and debates with whales. The film follows the Na?vi (aka blue guys) as they?re chased by a human military that seeks both resources and revenge. The cast includes Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldaña, and Sam Worthington.

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2025-12-19
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Heated Rivalry

The new show Heated Rivalry is a very sexy and very queer hockey romance streaming on HBO Max?and it?s a phenomenon. It follows archrival players Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) as they carry on a clandestine affair off the ice. And since it?s based on a whole series of interconnected romance novels by Rachel Reid, it may be with us for a very long time.

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2025-12-18
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Fallout

Fallout is based on a hugely successful video game series known for blending a sardonic, very dark comedic sensibility, and violence. The series is set in the game's post-apocalyptic world ? an America divided into factions wrestling for control of an irradiated wasteland. When the hopeful Lucy (Ella Purnell) steps out of the comfortable life she's known in an underground vault, the world she's confronted with is harsh, brutal, merciless ? and kinda funny. Fallout just returned for a second season on Prime Video, so today we?re revisiting our conversation about the show.

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2025-12-17
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Great Movies We Missed

Every year, we like to take a moment to look back and spotlight a few favorite films we didn?t have time to talk about. Today, we're making recommendations for great movies we missed in 2025 including The Secret Agent, Come See Me In the Good Light, Cactus Pears, and 100 Nights of Hero.

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2025-12-16
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Mailbag: The Movies We Walked Out Of

Aisha and Stephen answer a mailbag question! Send in your own questions at [email protected], and we may answer it in a future bonus episode.

This usually would be a bonus episode just for Pop Culture Happy Hour+ supporters, but this being the season of giving, we're sharing this one with everyone! To hear more bonus content like this every month and to support NPR and public radio, sign up for Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy

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2025-12-14
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Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and What?s Making Us Happy

Netflix?s Wake Up Dead Man is the third installment in the Knives Out franchise. Daniel Craig returns as detective Benoit Blanc -- with a cast of suspects that includes Josh O?Connor, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington and Thomas Haden Church. This time out, the mystery gets ecclesiastical in nature, involving the murder of Josh Brolin?s fire-and-brimstone priest at a small church.

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2025-12-12
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Jay Kelly

In Netflix?s Jay Kelly, George Clooney plays the aging movie star Jay Kelly. His longtime manager (Adam Sander) and publicist (Laura Dern) struggle to manage Jay on a trip through Europe as he deals with the difficult relationship he has with his two grown daughters. From director and co-writer Noah Baumbach, the film is an exploration of regret and missed opportunities.

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2025-12-10
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The Worst Christmas Movies

?Tis the season you?ll find plenty of good holiday movies ? films that can be counted upon to deliver warmth and cheer. And bad holiday movies? They can be fun in their own way. So we?re debating: what?s the worst Christmas movie of all time? We?ll talk about Love Actually, Jingle All The Way, I Believe In Santa, and Scrooge & Marley.

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2025-12-09
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The Abandons

In Netflix?s The Abandons, Gillian Anderson and Lena Headey play two steely matriarchs that face off on the American frontier. But don?t let the spurs and cowboy hats fool you. At its heart, the new Western series is a sudsy nighttime soap. But is that a good thing?

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2025-12-08
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Five Nights at Freddy?s 2 and What?s Making Us Happy

In the new film Five Nights at Freddy?s 2, Josh Hutcherson returns as the protagonist trying to survive in a haunted children?s restaurant called Freddy Fazbear?s Pizza. The creepy animatronic robots remain, and the sequel adds fresh lore and extends the action beyond the original abandoned restaurant.

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2025-12-05
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2025 Pop Culture Favorites

It?s been a great year for TV, movies, and music. And we are highlighting some of the best, including KPop Demon Hunters, Sinners, and Severance. We?ll also talk about some things you might have missed.

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2025-12-04
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Rereading Pride & Prejudice

This year, readers around the world are celebrating Jane Austen?s 250th birthday. Today we?ve got an episode of NPR?s Books We?ve Loved where Linda Holmes, Andrew Limbong and B.A. Parker discuss Austen?s seminal novel Pride & Prejudice. The trio weighs in on how the romance genre continues to reference the book?s ?enemies to lovers? story ? and why the tale?s leads Lizzie Bennet and Mr. Darcy still make us and laugh and swoon even today.

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2025-12-02
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Hamnet

Hamnet tells the fictionalized account of the lives of William Shakespeare and his wife, played by Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley. They fall in love, have children, suffer an unspeakable tragedy. When their only son dies, it creates a rift in their marriage and inspires Will to write one of his greatest works?Hamlet. Directed by Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), it does everything it can to make you cry a whole lot.

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2025-12-01
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All?s Fair And What?s Making Us Happy

Ryan Murphy?s latest show All?s Fair centers on an all-female law firm led by Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, and Niecy Nash-Betts. The high-powered law firm specializes in obtaining hefty divorce settlements for wealthy women. The show is barbed, nasty, over-the-top and maybe too much. It?s got us wondering: Is it fair that Murphy?s unleashed this utter silliness upon the world?

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2025-11-28
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Zootopia 2

Disney?s Zootopia grossed over a billion dollars worldwide. Now our heroes return in the sequel Zootopia 2. Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are now partners in the Zootopia police force. And there's a new problem: a snake has appeared in a reptile-free zone, and he brings to light a mystery from Zootopia's complicated past. The cast also includes Ke Huy Quan, Andy Samberg and Fortune Feimster, who add something new to what has already been a winning formula.

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2025-11-26
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Sentimental Value

The new movie Sentimental Value is one of the great films about absentee dads who reappear in their kids? lives. Stellan Skarsgård plays a renowned filmmaker preparing his next feature and attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughters (played by Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas). And it proves that at the very least, the tension between art and parenthood is complicated. The film is directed by Joachim Trier (The Worst Person in the World) and also stars Elle Fanning.

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2025-11-25
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All Her Fault

The entertaining Peacock series All Her Fault begins with a cute kid, an Emmy winner, and a mystery. Sarah Snook plays a mother who goes to pick up her young son from a playdate and learns there is no child to pick up. There are a lot of twists and turns?a lot of them?particularly as she gets to know another mom at the school, played by Dakota Fanning. While the agony of a missing child is bad enough, the show ultimately interrogates marriage, and the way women are forced to accommodate the behavior and misbehavior of men in their lives.

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2025-11-24
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Wicked: For Good And What?s Making Us Happy

Wicked was a smash hit that earned Oscar nominations for Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo?but that was only the first half of the story. Wicked: For Good has more songs, more magic, more extravagant production design, and more belting. But can it match the impact and live up to the hype of the first film?

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2025-11-21
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A Man On The Inside

The charming Netflix sitcom A Man on the Inside stars Ted Danson as a lonely widower who?s hired by a private investigator to live undercover in a senior living facility. His mission is to find out who stole a precious item from one of the residents. Created by Michael Schur (The Good Place), the series is also a tender and poignant depiction of loss, aging, and finding community. A Man on the Inside just returned for a second season, so today we?re revisiting our conversation about the show.

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2025-11-20
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The Beast In Me

In the new Netflix series The Beast In Me, a writer played by Claire Danes struggles to find the topic of her next book ? until a nefarious real estate tycoon played by Matthew Rhys moves in next door. He?s widely suspected of having murdered his first wife, even though her death has been officially treated as a suicide. The two cautiously get acquainted, as she tries to figure out the truth.

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2025-11-18
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Now You See Me: Now You Don't

In Now You See Me: Now You Don?t, the magical Four Horsemen ? played by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher ? reunite after almost 10 years to fight a cruel diamond heiress played by Rosamund Pike. You?ve got twists and turns, tricks galore, mysterious benefactors? and, just like in the Fast & Furious movies, a fair bit of talk about family.

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2025-11-17
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The Running Man And What's Making Us Happy

The Running Man is a new dystopian thriller starring Glen Powell as a man so desperate for money to care for his family that he volunteers to run for his life. As a contestant on a TV game show, he must survive for 30 days while being hunted by a group of highly skilled assassins and by his fellow citizens. Based on a Stephen King novel, director Edgar Wright brings in an all-star cast including Lee Pace, Colman Domingo, William H. Macy and Michael Cera.

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2025-11-14
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Death By Lightning

Netflix?s Death by Lightning pits President James Garfield (Michael Shannon) against Charles Guiteau (Matthew McFadyen), the disgruntled would-be political operative who shot him. But it?s not quite the stuffy, stately historical drama that you ? and your dad ? are probably expecting. Toss in a brace of white middle-aged actors in great big bushy beards and sideburns ? Shea Whigham, Nick Offerman, Bradley Whitford ? and you?ve got yourself a show.

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2025-11-13
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Pluribus

The new and highly anticipated Apple TV series Pluribus, from Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad), asks a simple question: What if a proud misanthrope suddenly found herself truly alone? Pluribus stars Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul) in a tour de force performance as a miserable romantasy author who escapes an event that swallows practically everyone on Earth. The show is a creepy, lonely, darkly funny look at loss and what makes us human.

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2025-11-11
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Predator: Badlands

Predator: Badlands is the latest film about an alien race that hunts things using all sorts of space-gadgets. It?s told from the Predator?s perspective. He?s an outcast sent to a hostile planet to hunt down a deadly monster to prove his worth to his people ? with Elle Fanning joining as an unlikely ally. It?s from the same team that made Prey. And both Predator movies are much better than they had any right to be.

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2025-11-10
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Frankenstein And What's Making Us Happy

Guillermo del Toro?s Frankenstein is a new reimagining of Mary Shelly?s classic gothic horror tale about a misunderstood monster who?s abandoned by his creator and shunned by society. Oscar Isaac is the narcissistic doctor Victor Frankenstein, and Jacob Elordi has a gargantuan yet humanizing turn as The Creature. Now streaming on Netflix, Frankenstein is dark, epic, and preoccupied with the existential dread of life and death.

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2025-11-07
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I Love LA

Rachel Sennott?s next project, the HBO series I Love LA, has finally arrived. And like plenty of shows before it, it?s about young people trying to work and socialize in a big city while screwing up in every conceivable way. Sennott stars as an ascendant employee at a boutique talent management firm with a very online crew played by Josh Hutcherson, Jordan Firstman, Odessa A?zion and True Whitaker.

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2025-11-06
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Hedda

In the new film Hedda, Tessa Thompson plays a woman bored with her dull husband, and who devilishly manipulates the affections of everyone in her orbit. Writer/director Nia DaCosta makes some bold changes in this adaptation of the classic Henrik Ibsen play Hedda Gabler, and sets almost all of the action during a lavish party gone awry. But this is not your grandmother?s Hedda. It?s sexy, chaotic, and, above all, messy as hell. It?s streaming on Prime Video.

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2025-11-04
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IT: Welcome To Derry

In new HBO prequel series IT: Welcome to Derry, we return to the clown who keeps on giving. Based on the Stephen King novel and a prequel to the films It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019), the show finds a whole new crop of kids being terrorized by whatever lives underneath their little town in Maine. And at the nearby military base, some of the local adults are acting pretty sketchy, too. There is a lot going on and a lot of it is very bloody. Bill Skarsgård returns as Pennywise, but be patient since it takes a while to lay eyes on him.

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2025-11-03
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Bugonia And What?s Making Us Happy

Bugonia stars Emma Stone as a high-powered CEO who?s kidnapped by conspiracy theorists, one of whom is played by Jesse Plemons. The conflict grows more and more complex and intense ? and, given that this is a Yorgos Lanthimos movie, it gets 1) very dark; and 2) very weird.

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2025-10-31
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If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

Rose Byrne shows off her dramatic chops in the new movie If I Had Legs I?d Kick You, where she plays a therapist shouldering all the responsibility of caring for her ill daughter while her emotionally absent husband is away for work. Her patients have their own issues, and sometimes they don't grasp the meaning of "boundaries." And her relationship with her own therapist/co-worker, who?s played by Conan O?Brien, is? messy. And that?s only the beginning.

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2025-10-29
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Halloween Songs

Who's the Mariah Carey of Halloween? Every year we hear many familiar Halloween songs ? from the Ghostbusters theme to ?Thriller? to ?Monster Mash.? But beyond those Halloween staples, what?s next? Today we've got an episode of NPR?s All Songs Considered that offers up a new canon spooky season songs ? from the truly terrifying to autumnal and nostalgic.

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2025-10-28
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Episodes

Watch This: It Was Just An Accident

The Rip

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and What?s Making Us Happy

Agatha Christie?s Seven Dials

Hijack

Our Dream TV Crossovers

People We Meet On Vacation and What's Making Us Happy

Sabrina Carpenter and the Embarrassing Truth of Dating Men

No Other Choice

Stranger Things

2026 Resolutions and What?s Making Us Happy

2026 Pop Culture Predictions

2025 Best Video Games

2025 Books We Love

Anaconda

Marty Supreme and What?s Making Us Happy

Best Christmas Gift I Ever Received

The Housemaid

Avatar: Fire And Ash and What?s Making Us Happy

Heated Rivalry

Fallout

Great Movies We Missed

Mailbag: The Movies We Walked Out Of

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and What?s Making Us Happy

Jay Kelly

The Worst Christmas Movies

The Abandons

Five Nights at Freddy?s 2 and What?s Making Us Happy

2025 Pop Culture Favorites

Rereading Pride & Prejudice

Hamnet

All?s Fair And What?s Making Us Happy

Zootopia 2

Sentimental Value

All Her Fault

Wicked: For Good And What?s Making Us Happy

A Man On The Inside

The Beast In Me

Now You See Me: Now You Don't

The Running Man And What's Making Us Happy

Death By Lightning

Pluribus

Predator: Badlands

Frankenstein And What's Making Us Happy

I Love LA

Hedda

IT: Welcome To Derry

Bugonia And What?s Making Us Happy

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You

Halloween Songs