Critics at Large | The New Yorker

Yiyun Li’s “Things in Nature Merely Grow” is a bracingly candid memoir of profound loss: one written in the wake of her son James’s death by suicide, seven years after her older son Vincent died in the same way. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss Li’s book, which reads alternately like a work of philosophy, a piece of narrative criticism, and a devastating acco...

Though Jane Austen went largely unrecognized in her own lifetime—four of her six novels were published anonymously, and the other two only after her death—her name is now synonymous with the period romance. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz choose their personal favorites from her œuvre—“Emma,” “Persuasion,” and “Mansfield Park”—and attempt to get to the heart of her ...

“Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong’s latest work, a ripped-from-the-headlines sendup of tech billionaires called “Mountainhead,” is arguably an extension of his over-all project: making the ultra-wealthy look fallible, unglamorous, and often flat-out amoral. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how the new movie draws on the tech oligarchs we’ve come to know in...

 “Sesame Street,” which first aired on PBS in 1969, was born of a progressive idea: that children from all socioeconomic backgrounds should have access to free, high-quality, expressly educational entertainment. In the years since, the show has become essential viewing for generations of kids around the world. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the program’s r...

There’s arguably no better time for falling down a cultural rabbit hole than the languid, transitory summer months. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how the season allows us to foster a particular relationship with a work of art—whether it’s the soundtrack to a summer fling or a book that helps make sense of a new locale. Listeners divulge the texts that have...

In the weeks since Pope Francis’s passing, the internet has been flooded by papal memes, election analysis, and even close readings of the newly appointed Pope Leo XIV’s own posts. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider why the moment has so captivated Catholics and nonbelievers alike. They discuss the online response and hear from the writer Paul Elie, who’s been...

In a new installment of the Critics at Large advice hotline, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz field calls from listeners on a variety of cultural dilemmas, and offer recommendations for what ails them. Callers’ concerns run the gamut from the lighthearted to the existential; several seek works to help ease the sting of the state of the world. “I can’t say that we will solve those deeper issues,” Cunning...

The vampire has long been a way to explore the shadow side of society, and “Sinners,” Ryan Coogler’s new blockbuster set in the Jim Crow-era South, is no exception. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss what “Sinners,” which fuses historical realism with monster-movie-style horror, illuminates about America in 2025. They trace the archetype from such nineteenth-ce...

For nearly as long as we’ve been waging war, we’ve sought ways to chronicle it. “Warfare,” a new movie co-directed by the filmmaker Alex Garland and the former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, takes an unorthodox approach, recreating a disastrous real-life mission in Iraq according to Mendoza’s own memories and those of the soldiers who fought alongside him. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alex...

The tension between art and commerce is a tale as old as time, and perhaps the most dramatic clashes in recent history have played out in Hollywood. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz explore how moviemaking and the business behind it have been depicted over the decades, from Lillian Ross’s classic 1952 work of reportage, “Picture,” to Robert Altman’s pitch-black 1992 ...

Gossip, an essential human pastime, is full of contradictions. It has the potential to be as destructive to its subjects as it is titillating to its practitioners; it can protect against very real threats, as in the case of certain pre-#MeToo whisper networks, or tip over into the realm of conspiracy. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the role gossip has play...

The first episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” released in 2009, consisted mostly of its host smoking weed, cracking jokes, and futzing with technical equipment. But Rogan quickly proved adept at the kind of casual, nonconfrontational interviews that have made the show such an enormous success in 2025: it regularly tops podcast charts and features hours-long conversations with the most powerful figures in politics. On th...

In 1939, reviewing the beloved M-G-M classic “The Wizard of Oz” for The New Yorker, the critic Russell Maloney declared that the film held “no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity.” The use of color was “eye-straining,” the dialogue was unbelievable, and the movie as a whole was “a stinkeroo.” This take might shock today’s audiences, but Maloney is far from the only critic to go so pointedly against the popular v...

For many of us, daily life is defined by a near-constant stream of decisions, from what to buy on Amazon to what to watch on Netflix. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider how we came to see endless selection as a fundamental right. The hosts discuss “The Age of Choice,” a new book by the historian Sophia Rosenfeld, which traces how our fixation with the freedom ...

“The Pitt,” which recently began streaming on Max, spans a single shift in the life of a doctor at an underfunded Pittsburgh hospital where, in the course of fifteen gruelling hours, he and his team struggle to keep up with a seemingly endless stream of patients. The show has been praised by lay-viewers and health-care professionals alike for its human drama and its true-to-life portrayal of structural issues that are rare...

“Severance” is an office drama with a twist: the central characters have undergone a procedure to separate their work selves (“innies,” in the parlance of the show) from their home selves (“outies”). The Apple TV+ series is just the latest cultural offering to explore how the modern world asks us to compartmentalize our lives in increasingly drastic ways. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, a...

The first episode of “Saturday Night Live,” which aired in October of 1975, was a loose, scrappy affair. The sketches were experimental, almost absurdist, and the program was peppered with standup from the host, George Carlin, who freely addressed the hot-button issues of the day. “S.N.L.” turns fifty this year, and its anniversary has been marked by a slew of festivities, culminating in a three-hour special that aired thi...

A few years back, novels classed as “romantasy”—a portmanteau of “romance” and “fantasy”—might have seemed destined to attract only niche appeal. But since the pandemic, the genre has proved nothing short of a phenomenon. Sarah J. Maas’s “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series regularly tops best-seller lists, and last month, Rebecca Yarros’s “Onyx Storm” became the fastest-selling adult novel in decades. On this episode of C...

David Lynch, who died last month at seventy-eight, was a director of images—one whose distinctive sensibility and instinct for combining the grotesque and the mundane have influenced a generation of artists in his wake. Lynch conjured surreal, sometimes hellish dreamscapes populated by strange figures and supernatural forces lurking beneath wholesome American idylls. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, ...