In the Prime Video series Scarpetta, Nicole Kidman plays a tough, smart medical examiner whose latest murder case is entangled with a much earlier one. The show's got a big cast including Jamie Lee Curtis, Bobby Cannavale and Ariana DeBose. Scarpetta is based on a series of successful crime novels by Patricia Cornwell.


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At the Oscars, One Battle After Another took home six awards including best picture, Michael B. Jordan won for lead actor in Sinners, and the telecast had plenty of jokes at Timothée Chalamet?s expense. We?re recapping the highs and lows of the 2026 Oscars.

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We've watched all the nominees in the major categories for the Oscars including Sinners, One Battle After Another, Hamnet, and Marty Supreme. So we?ve got opinions about what will win and what should win. (And yes, we?ll talk about Timothée Chalamet.)

For a list of our favorite Oscar nominated films, check out our list at Letterboxd ? at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture.

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This year, there's finally an Oscar being awarded for casting. The nominees are the casting directors for Sinners, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, and The Secret Agent. That got us thinking - what makes a great cast, anyway? Today, we spent some time talking about some of the nominees and casting generally.

For a list of films we discussed, check out our list at Letterboxd ? at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture.

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Harry Styles just released his new album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally. It?s his fourth solo album since leaving the boy band One Direction, and the follow-up to Harry?s House, which won album of the year at the Grammys. The new album is a fairly radical departure, inspired by dance floors and post-punk music. But it still swoons, as any Harry Styles record must.

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In Disney and Pixar?s delightful new film Hoppers, a young woman (Piper Curda) learns a beloved glade is under threat from the town?s slimy mayor (Jon Hamm). But luckily, she discovers that her college professor has developed technology that can let her live as one of the critters she loves ? by allowing her mind to ?hop? into an animatronic beaver. And it just might just allow her to help save the glade from serious risk of destruction.

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The Bride! goes way beyond a simple tale of literature?s most famous reanimated corpses. Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal and starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale, the film is a wild take on the bride of Frankenstein?s monster. It follows her origin story, her relationship with the big lug himself, and her pursuit of her own distinct identity. 

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John F. Kennedy Jr. was an object of public fixation his entire life, and he?s now the subject of the FX series Love Story. It focuses on Kennedy?s (Paul Anthony Kelly) relationship with his wife, Carolyn Bessette (Sarah Pidgeon). The show follows their courtship, their marriage, and the great strain that she experienced as part of what was, for a time, one of the most closely watched couples in the world.

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The new comedy series The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins stars Tracy Morgan as a disgraced former football star and Daniel Radcliffe as a documentary filmmaker who team up to make a movie. I know what you?re saying - another mockumentary sitcom? What if I told you that the creators come from shows like 30 Rock, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Girls5eva? And that the joke density bears that out? The NBC/Peacock series also stars Erika Alexander, Bobby Moynihan and Craig Robinson.


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HBO?s addictive drama Industry has never been afraid to wade in the muck, and the fourth season and finale was especially messy. The paths of frenemies Harper (Myha?la) and Yasmin (Marisa Abela) erratically converged and diverged, Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington) lands at a fintech startup, and the parallels to real-life headlines became impossible not to notice. So after that harrowing season finale, we?re wondering what just happened, and where might the show go from here?

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The OG Scream Queen Neve Campbell returns. Scream 7 re-centers the franchise back on Sidney Prescott. She has a new life, a family, and lots of baggage. You know the drill: Someone dressing up as the masked slasher Ghostface comes for her, her family and friends. There?s lots of stabbing and murder and so many red herrings it?s practically a smorgasbord.

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The streaming service Tubi has become a repository for a wild assortment of movies, TV shows, and original properties. They?re all free to watch, provided you?re willing to sit through some ads. So we asked some Tubi-philes to recommend some great movies that you can find on the service: Hundreds of Beavers, Color Out of Space, Petey Wheatstraw, and Mambo Italiano.


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The Peacock reality show The Traitors has become weekly appointment television, as the always impeccably dressed Alan Cumming presides over an unfriendly game full of alliances, secrets, treachery and murder. This season has been rich with drama. Players like Love Island contestant Rob Rausch and former Real Housewife Lisa Rinna have created some truly memorable moments in Traitors history. Ahead of the finale, we convene in the turret to debrief on it all.

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In Hulu's twisty drama series Paradise, Sterling K. Brown plays a Secret Service agent caught up in a web of intrigue after the president of the United States (James Marsden) is assassinated, with no suspect in sight. But at the end of the first episode, we learn this show is about way more than the murder of the head of state. From Dan Fogelman (This is Us), the series is back for a second season, so we?re revisiting our conversation about the show. 

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The Winter Olympics are well underway, and we?ve got thoughts from an avid Olympics watcher and a reporter who?s covering the games in Italy. Whether it?s butt on the couch or feet on the ground ? we?ve got you covered.

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America?s Next Top Model has been rewatched in the years since its 2003 premiere, and its handling of race, body image, and other issues has been loudly and heavily criticized. A new Netflix docuseries Reality Check: Inside America?s Next Top Model interviews the major players including Tyra Banks, J. Alexander, Jay Manuel and Nigel Barker. And it doesn?t let Tyra off easy.

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Netflix?s How To Get To Heaven From Belfast is the new series from the creator of the beloved show Derry Girls. It follows three very messy longtime friends working together to solve a mystery from their youth. Part mystery and part comedy, it?s a darkly funny adventure through Ireland and elsewhere, as they elude various pursuers, reopen old wounds, and try to find answers about what has happened to a friend they lost along the way.


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In Pillion, a.k.a. the ?gay BDSM biker movie,? a meek young man named Colin (Harry Melling) meets a handsome, broody biker played by Alexander Skarsgård who brings out his submissive side. They enter into a sub/dom relationship, but the biker remains so mysterious and withholding that Colin starts to want more ? endangering the bond the two men share. 

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In the new film ?Wuthering Heights,? Margot Robbie stars as headstrong and horny Cathy, and Jacob Elordi as brooding and horny Heathcliff. Their love on the wild windswept moors is passionate, doomed and pretty bonkers. From writer and director Emerald Fennell, the film has love, lust, hatred, revenge, and lots of lusty looks in the soaking rain.


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What?s your favorite movie that started life as a book? And what makes for a great book to film adaptation, anyway? We?ve got some examples of beloved books that made the transition to the big screen, and we?re prepared to discuss and debate why each of them works ? and why we believe they?re the best of all time. We talk about: Blade Runner, Little Women, Nickel Boys, and Starship Troopers.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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