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Pop Culture Happy Hour

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Get obsessed with us. Four days a week, Pop Culture Happy Hour serves you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, books, videogames and more. Join arts journalists Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Aisha Harris - plus a rotating cast of guest pop culture aficionados. The Happy Hour team leaves room at the table for exploring a range of reactions and opinions on every bit of the pop universe. From lowbrow to highbrow to the stuff in between, they take it all with a shot of cheer.Make your happy hour even happier with Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus! Your subscription supports the podcast and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/happyhour

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Episodes

The Pop Culture Hill I?ll Die On

We've all got that one argument we're always making: that non-negotiable stance, that immutable truth we're sticking to no matter what. Today, we're revisiting our conversation about the pop culture hills we'll die on. We discuss: Jacob Elordi, Timothée Chalamet, boss battles in video games, Bryan Adams, and attending concerts.

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2026-02-10
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Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime Show

At the Super Bowl halftime show, Bad Bunny put on an endlessly rewatchable performance. It featured Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, and a real wedding. But it didn?t shy away from this political moment, and Bad Bunny?s place in the culture wars.

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2026-02-09
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Charli xcx, The Moment and What?s Making Us Happy

Remember Brat Summer? Charli xcx has turned the aftermath of her mainstream success into a movie called The Moment. It?s a hyperpop faux documentary commenting upon the intense response to her album, Brat, and Charli?s fickle relationship with stardom. Can Charli keep the Brat momentum going? Does she even want to? The film also features Alexander Skarsgård, Hailey Benton Gates, and Kylie Jenner.

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2026-02-06
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Wonder Man

Marvel?s new Disney+ series Wonder Man is a sensible buddy comedy where Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays a down-on-his-luck actor (with incredible superpowers) trying to make it in Hollywood, and Ben Kingsley plays his new friend with a dark past. Safe to say it?s not what most Marvel fans are expecting ? and that?s a good thing.

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2026-02-04
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2026 Sundance Film Festival: Best Movies

We watched a ton of movies and we?re recommending some of the best things we saw at this year?s Sundance Film Festival. This includes a thrilling adventure starring Ethan Hawke, a quiet romance with Chris Pine, and quite possibly the best documentary we?ll see all year.
For a complete list of the movies we loved at Sundance, Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd

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2026-02-03
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2026 Grammys Recap

This year?s Grammy Awards featured historic wins for Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar, performances from Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, and occasional chaos. And it was a night of speeches that reflected this moment in America.


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2026-02-02
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Send Help and What?s Making Us Happy

In the new comic horror film Send Help, Rachel McAdams finds out the answer to the age-old hypothetical, ?what if you were stranded on a desert island?? ? except she?s stuck there with her terrible boss (Dylan O?Brien). The dynamic between them shifts and shifts again as they try to survive long enough to be rescued.

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2026-01-30
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Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

Star Trek fans are finally getting something they?ve wanted for a long time, and it doesn?t disappoint. The new series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy takes place at the college attended by kids who want to become officers in Starfleet. It stars Holly Hunter as the school?s chancellor, Paul Giamatti as a recurring bad guy, and a roster of hot young cadets who have classes to attend and lessons to learn.


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2026-01-29
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The Beauty

The Beauty stars familiar faces from the Ryan Murphy universe, including Evan Peters, as well as new collaborators like Ashton Kutcher. In the show, a genetic biotech serum has been engineered to transform people into ridiculously good-looking supermodels. But there?s at least one problem: Eventually, those supermodels are dying suddenly, horrifically and spectacularly. Is it astute commentary, crass exploitation, or maybe a bit of both? Well, it?s definitely a Ryan Murphy production, through and through.

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2026-01-27
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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

The HBO series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms may be set in the same fantasy world as Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, but it?s a small, grounded story ? a kind of medieval buddy comedy. It follows a sweet but dim knight (Peter Claffey) and his wise-beyond-his-years young squire (Dexter Sol Ansell) trying to make their way in a tough world. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is based on a series of novellas by George R.R. Martin.


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2026-01-26
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One Battle After Another and What?s Making Us Happy

One Battle After Another earned 13 Oscar nominations - including best picture, best director and a lead actor nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio. In the action-thriller, DiCaprio plays a washed up ex-revolutionary searching for his missing daughter while raging against the machine. In this case, the machine is unabashedly racist, xenophobic, and corrupt. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the ensemble also includes Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor and Benicio del Toro. Today, we?re revisiting our episode about the film that originally aired in September 2025.
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2026-01-23
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2026 Oscar Nominations

This year?s Oscars nominations are here, and we?re unpacking record-breaking nominations for Sinners, plus nominations for One Battle After Another and Hamnet. And as always, there?s an eclectic mix of heavy favorites, left-field surprises, and the dreaded snubs. We give a broad sense of this year?s major storylines, while also lamenting a few decisions we found baffling.

By the way, you can check out our episodes on the nominees here:

Bugonia

F1

Frankenstein

Hamnet

Marty Supreme

One Battle After Another

The Secret Agent

Sentimental Value

Sinners

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2026-01-22
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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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