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The New Yorker

Books & Culture

Critic’s Notebook

The Cruel Abstraction of “Beast Games”

On a competition show made by the YouTube sensation MrBeast, the people are faceless and the challenges are vicious.
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Infinite Scroll

What Happened When an Extremely Offline Person Tried TikTok

In 2016, I went viral for telling people to quit social media. In 2024, I ignored my own advice.
Open Questions

How Do You Know When a System Has Failed?

We see broken systems all around us. At least, we think we do.
Critic’s Notebook

Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, and the Collapse of the Hollywood #MeToo Era

The reportage that thrived in the late twenty-tens cannot break through on today’s volatile Internet, where information is misinformation and victims are offenders.
A Critic at Large

Why Zora Neale Hurston Was Obsessed with the Jews

Her long-unpublished novel was the culmination of a years-long fascination. What does it reveal about her fraught views on civil rights?

Books

Book Currents

Garth Risk Hallberg’s Essential Joyce Carol Oates

The author of “The Second Coming” and “City on Fire” selects recommendations from the great American writer’s sprawling body of work.
Books

Does One Emotion Rule All Our Ethical Judgments?

When prehistoric predators abounded, the ability to perceive harm helped our ancestors survive. Some researchers wonder whether it fuels our greatest fights today.
Books

Briefly Noted

“Rosarita,” “Gabriel’s Moon,” “Embers of the Hands,” and “Mothers and Sons.”
Book Currents

Sebastian Mallaby on Finance’s Intellectual Adventure Stories

The world might love to hate financiers, but the worlds of hedge funds, venture capital, and central banking can be filled with thrilling ideas and human dramas.

Movies

The Front Row

How David Lynch Became an Icon of Cinema

The late director’s unique vision and the love that his persona inspires make it easy to forget how winding his path to greatness was.
The Front Row

The Enigmatic Artistry of Terrence Malick

The director has long shunned the spotlight, but his work conveys the force of a mighty personality. A new biography offers a rare look at his life and work.
The Current Cinema

Who and What Should Be Nominated for the 2025 Oscars

Critics don’t vote for the Academy Awards—but here’s how one critic would fill out his imaginary ballot.
The Front Row

The Empty Ambition of “The Brutalist”

Brady Corbet’s epic takes on weighty themes, but fails to infuse its characters with the stuff of life.

Food

The Food Scene

The Best Restaurant Dishes of 2024

A food critic’s favorite menu items from a year of dining out.
The Food Scene

Three Exceptional Panettones

When it comes to the Italian holiday loaf, there’s magnificence and there’s stultifying disappointment, with little in between.
The Food Scene

Borgo Is Worth the Trip to Manhattan

Andrew Tarlow is known for Brooklyn spots with low lighting, tattooed servers, and hunks of meat. Now, across the East River for the first time, he shifts the vibe toward stately elegance.
On and Off the Menu

Houston’s Thriving West African Food Scene

As the city has welcomed more immigrants from Nigeria and neighboring countries, the local restaurant landscape has flourished.
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Photo Booth

The Henri Cartier-Bresson of South Korea

Han Youngsoo chronicled the postwar transformation of mid-century Seoul, complicating popular depictions of that era as one solely of deprivation and hardship.

Television

On Television

Are We Living in a Dystopia?

The sci-fi series “Silo” is the latest in a string of popular post-apocalyptic dramas with an increasingly uncanny resonance.
2024 in Review

The Best TV Shows of 2024

In an otherwise bleak year for television, a few truly great entries shone all the more brightly.
Under Review

The Amazing, Disappearing Johnny Carson

Carson pioneered a new style of late-night hosting—relaxed, improvisatory, risk-averse, and inscrutable.
On Television

“Disclaimer” Is a Baffling Misfire from a Great Auteur

Alfonso Cuarón’s foray into television is a work of such vacuity that even Cate Blanchett can’t salvage it.

The Theatre

The New Yorker Radio Hour

Sara Bareilles Talks with Rachel Syme

The songwriter and performer on her journey from pop music to theatre, with a live performance of “Gravity.”
The Theatre

Audra McDonald Triumphs in “Gypsy” on Broadway

In the latest revival of Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim, and Jule Styne’s iconic musical, George C. Wolfe humanizes a famously monstrous stage mother.
2024 in Review

The Best Theatre of 2024

This year’s standout productions ran the gamut from outrageously fabulous to quasi-religious in feeling.
The Theatre

Family Discord and Holiday Music in “Cult of Love” and “No President”

Two scathing new productions satisfy our hunger for dysfunction-driven entertainment.

Music

2024 in Review

The Best Pop Songs of 2024

The year’s breakthrough music moments included a Taylor Swift comeback, an unexpected Internet-rap collab, and an absurdist sample of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Musical Events

The Berlin Philharmonic Doesn’t Need a Star Conductor

The musicians possess a powerful collective personality, creating an organic mass of sound.
Musical Events

The Meditative Organ Soundscapes of Kali Malone

The eighty-minute suite “All Life Long” is slow, hushed, and gnawingly beautiful, but it does not supply conventional musical comforts.
2024 in Review

The Best Albums of 2024

It’s possible that I listened to more music this year than any other. I lost interest in podcasts. I lost interest in silence. There was too much extraordinary work out there.

More in Culture

Cover Story

Madame President: The Cover That Never Was

If Kamala Harris had won.
The Current Cinema

The Ghost’s-Eye View of Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence”

Doing his own camerawork, the director gleefully enriches the haunted-house genre with a simple but ingenious device.
Goings On

Ballet Past and Present, at New York City Ballet

Plus: the sadistic “Saw: The Musical”; Michael Roemer’s end-of-life documentary; and Rachel Syme on adult classes on offer in N.Y.C.
Drinks with The New Yorker

Ali Smith’s Playful Dystopia

The author discusses why she has a dumbphone, how to “meet reverses boldly,” and her new novel, “Gliff.”
The New Yorker Interview

The Liberated Life of Colman Domingo

The actor discusses the West Philly musicians that inspired his style; the rejection that nearly made him quit show business; and the experience of making “Sing Sing” with former members of a prison theatre troupe.
Annals of Appearances

A City on Fire Can’t Be Photographed

The images of a burning Los Angeles won’t last, simply because our ways of seeing are inadequate to our predicament.
Drinks with The New Yorker

Britain’s Badger Wars

The animals are being killed in droves. Are they pests or political pawns?
On Television

The New Season of “Severance” Is All Work and No Play

The sci-fi series was hailed as a dark, timely satire of office life—but its return is bogged down by abstract ethical conundrums and rote emotional ones.
Goings On

The Outsized Influence of De La Soul

Also: Ronald K. Brown’s “Grace” and its sequel; the Broadway comedy “All In,” reviewed; the Philadelphia Orchestra’s study of Mahler, and more.
Cover Story

Barry Blitt’s “Two’s a Crowd”

Elon Musk takes center stage.