Criticism

movie review

Caught by the Tides Is an Epic Built From Scraps

 Jia Zhangke’s odyssey through 21st-century China is mostly footage shot during the production of other films. The result is staggering. By Madeline Leung Coleman
movie review

Introducing the Most Tim Robinson of Tim Robinson Characters

 The new movie Friendship plays like a low-stakes platonic variation on an erotic thriller, a worthy first big-screen starring role for the comedian. By Alison Willmore
performance review

Jude Law’s Mustache Is the Real Star of The Order

 The actor’s facial hair smears blood, soaks up beer, absorbs cigarette smoke, and tells viewers everything they need to know about his character. By Roxana Hadadi
  1. tv review
    A Forever for Right NowMara Brock Akil’s masterful Judy Blume adaptation finds the timeless in a contemporary teen couple’s sexual awakening.
    By Kathryn VanArendonk
  2. tv review
    Poker Face Stacks the DeckBy discarding some old story lines and going all in on the guest-star baddies, season two proves this series can play the long game.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  3. close read
    Andor Dared to Say ‘Genocide’The best episodes of the series are a direct rebuttal to anyone who still claims Star Wars isn’t political.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  4. book review
    The Romance of Being UnreadableIn his debut novel, Ocean Vuong took pains to be illegible, then blamed the reader for reading. In his new book, he is finally ready to talk.
    By Andrea Long Chu
  5. theater review
    Looking at the Female Gaze: Five Models in Ruins, 1981A sumptuous, if maybe overtidy, trip back to the shoulder-pad era.
    By Jackson McHenry
  6. and the winner is…
    Branden Jacobs-Jenkins Finally Wins His First Pulitzer for PurposeAnd New York theater critic Sara Holdren is a finalist in Criticism.
    By Jason P. Frank
  7. movie review
    Bonjour Tristesse Is Lovely and UnconvincingThis new adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s iconic novel gets the look right, but its characterizations are off the mark.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  8. pilot’s code
    Nathan Fielder Made a Better Sully Biopic Than SullyIn The Rehearsal, the comedian unearths a deeper truth about this American hero. He also wears a diaper.
    By Rebecca Alter
  9. amen
    The Righteous Gemstones’s Redemption SongIn the end, the religious satire was less interested in condemning the family for their sins than in testing the limits of forgiveness.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  10. movie review
    Sadness Hangs Over Rust, in More Ways Than OneIt’s not possible to watch the Alec Baldwin western without thinking of the accident that took cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’s life.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  11. theater review
    Encores! Visits a Muted Wonderful Town At City Center, Anika Noni Rose and Aisha Jackson don’t quite light up Greenwich Village.
    By Jackson McHenry
  12. best of 2025
    The Best Anime Series of 2025 (So Far)A subgenre notorious for junk has against the odds given us two standouts.
    By Kambole Campbell
  13. movie review
    Another Simple Favor Is So Fun, Until It Gets So DumbBy the end, the film doesn’t feel subversively strange, just self-consciously campy and irritatingly smug.
    By Alison Willmore
  14. tv review
    THE FOUR SEASONS
    The Four Seasons Is Probably Not Your ThingUnless you’re middle-aged. Then it’s very much your thing.
    By Jen Chaney
  15. best of 2025
    The Best Video Games of 2025 (So Far)Games often promise the world; our favorites are those that deliver a vision.
    By Lewis Gordon
  16. character work
    God Bless Judy, Our Most Precious GemstoneNo one does it like Edi Patterson.
    By Brian Grubb
  17. best of 2025
    Best Albums of 2025 (So Far)A candid posthumous release plus a soundtrack for bedrooms and basements.
    By Craig Jenkins
  18. best of 2025
    The Best Songs of 2025 (So Far)Miley Cyrus blends free jazz with electro-lounge music, while night owls get a debaucherous new anthem.
    By Justin Curto and Alex Suskind
  19. close read
    I Am High on Saw Gerrera’s SupplyThe Rebellion’s rhydo-huffing outlier has grown into Andor’s most fascinating invention.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  20. best of 2025
    The Best Movies of 2025 (So Far)Including a feast for those who want films to have visual sensuality and an emotional bite.
    By Alison Willmore, Bilge Ebiri, and Angelica Jade Bastién
  21. a long talk
    ‘I’m Looking for Someone to Fight, Not Someone to Run Over With My Car’Andrea Long Chu on her new book, Authority; the so-called crisis of criticism; and how she chooses her subjects.
    By Arielle Angel
  22. movie review
    Thunderbolts* Really Is Marvel’s Answer to an A24 MovieThe MCU’s anti-hero team-up is less Suicide Squad than Everything Everywhere All At Once.
    By Alison Willmore
  23. best of 2025
    The Best Books of 2025 (So Far)What if Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was written like The Savage Detectives?
    By Vulture Editors
  24. close read
    Dark Winds Draws New Border LinesSeason three’s ending for Bernadette limits her individual ambition while broadening her — and the series’ — perspective on Native justice.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  25. best of 2025
    The Best Podcasts of 2025 (So Far)If you really want to absorb something, immerse yourself in the wonkiest podcasts imaginable.
    By Nicholas Quah
  26. best of 2025
    The Best TV Shows of 2025 (So Far)Great television will not be confined nor defined by genre.
    By Jen Chaney, Roxana Hadadi, and Kathryn VanArendonk
  27. theater review
    Real Women Have Curves
    Bright and Bold in Undocumented L.A.: Real Women Have Curves“It’s got plenty of bubbly, cheeky joy and big-dreaming sincerity, but it pulls back before crossing the line into either treacle or fluff.”
    By Sara Holdren
  28. theater review
    From 'Dead Outlaw,' at the Longacre Theatre.
    In Dead Outlaw, Elmer McCurdy Gets One More Turn in the SpotlightAn antihero takes an exceptionally long, exceptionally strange, exceptionally American voyage through the West.
    By Jackson McHenry
  29. theater review
    Just in Time Will Teach You About Bobby Darin and Even More About Jonathan GroffA dual psychological portrait of subject and star in the form of a bio-musical.
    By Jackson McHenry
  30. endings
    You Should’ve Aimed HigherIt wasn’t just the sexual predation that made Joe Goldberg so evil.
    By Nicholas Quah
  31. movie review
    In Praise of Revenge of the Sith, the Saddest and Sincerest Star Wars MovieThe final film in the Star Wars prequel trilogy feels like George Lucas’s attempt to step back from his creation and really reckon with it.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  32. that’s all i wanted
    Be Our Father Figure, HarrisBabygirl’s best scene is when its upstart intern reaches for the brown liquor.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  33. movie review
    Babygirl Might Just Be the Year’s Hottest MovieThough what’s great about this sexy Nicole Kidman-Harris Dickinson drama is how surprising it can be.
    By Alison Willmore
  34. sxsw 2025
    The Accountant 2 Cannot Be Taken SeriouslyDo not approach this sequel, starring Ben Affleck as an underworld accountant again, with any sort of sobriety.
    By Alison Willmore
  35. art review
    Rashid Johnson’s Visual FeastThe new Rashid Johnson survey at the Guggenheim is sprawling and stunning.
    By Yinka Elujoba
  36. theater review
    Pirates! The Penzance Musical
    Pirates! Is the Very Model of a Modern Major DebacleThe ever-delightful David Hyde Pierce can’t disguise that Gilbert and Sullivan’s confectionery operetta has been keelhauled.
    By Sara Holdren
  37. movie review
    Havoc Feels Like a Grand Theft Auto Adaptation (Derogatory)Tom Hardy plays a dirty cop in the new movie from the director of The Raid, which is all cool elements and no coherence.
    By Alison Willmore
  38. close read
    #1 Happy Family USA Keeps SwingingRamy Youssef’s post-9/11 animated series throws punches in every direction on its way to an absurd, sneakily tragic cliffhanger.
    By Roxana Hadadi
  39. song review
    It’s Nice to See Lorde Moving OnEven if her new single feels a bit last decade.
    By Craig Jenkins
  40. movie review
    We Have Good News and Bad News About The Legend of OchiThe good news is the controversy over the new A24 film’s supposedly AI-looking critter is baseless. The bad news? Well…
    By Bilge Ebiri
  41. tv review
    I Can’t Believe Étoile Got Away With ThisAmy Sherman-Palladino cashes her blank Amazon check on a transatlantic TV show about ballet. C’est merveilleux!
    By Jackson McHenry
  42. endings
    The Deeper Meaning Behind Conclave’s Surprise Ending, ExplainedThe conclusion of this gossipy Vatican drama makes one distinct change from the book it’s based on, in service of a message about progress.
    By Louis Peitzman
  43. theater review
    High School, Dramatically: Stranger Things: The First Shadow and Grief CampThe great American unifier, put onstage at two vastly different scales.
    By Sara Holdren
  44. close read
    Sinners’s Music Goes for the JugularThe film upends what we’ve come to expect from stories about the blues.
    By Craig Jenkins
  45. theater review
    Floyd Collins Is Beautiful But Can’t Break FreeA few crucial staging choices kneecap this production from the start, undermining its epic tragedy.
    By Sara Holdren
  46. tv review
    Star Wars Needed ThisAndor’s second season doesn’t just cement the series as the best of the franchise, it also deepens the saga surrounding it.
    By Nicholas Quah
  47. movie review
    Cinderella Was Always a Body-Horror StoryNorwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt’s The Ugly Stepsister underlines the base grotesquerie of the original fairy tale.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  48. movie review
    The Wedding Banquet Is Rom-Com Whiplash in the Best SenseThe characters in Andrew Ahn’s remake of an Ang Lee classic can get gay-married, but they’re going to get fake straight-married instead.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  49. you have bewitched me
    Why We Still Yearn for Pride and PrejudiceJoe Wright’s 2005 adaptation is filled with lovely images, but it’s all still so experiential, like we’re seeing through the characters’ eyes.
    By Bilge Ebiri
  50. movie review
    Sinners Is Bold, Ambitious, and Just Misses GreatnessIt’s a film that will haunt me just as much as it will keep me wondering who Ryan Coogler wants to be on the other side of Creed and Black Panther.
    By Angelica Jade Bastién
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