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Books & Culture

The New Yorker Interview

Michael Imperioli Knows Art Can’t Save Us

The “White Lotus” and “Sopranos” star discusses his formative first encounter with Martin Scorsese, his philosophy of acting, and the climate protest that just disrupted his Broadway début.
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The Weekend Essay

Life in a Luxury Hotel for New Moms and Babies

My month of rest, relaxation, and regret at a Taiwanese postpartum-care center.
The New Yorker Interview

Kelly Link Is Committed to the Fantastic

The MacArthur-winning author on the worthwhile frivolity of the fantasy genre, how magic is and is not like a credit card, and why she hates to write but does it anyway.
The New Yorker Interview

Alan Cumming Wants Us All to Let Go

The actor, author, cabaret performer, and host of the hit reality series “The Traitors” says, “I think American people, especially, are slightly ashamed of abandon.”
The Weekend Essay

My Anxiety

Is what’s wrong with me what’s wrong with everyone else?

Books

Under Review

Can We Get Kids Off Smartphones?

We know that social media is bad for young people, who need more time—and freedom—offline. But the collective will to fix this problem is hard to find.
Under Review

The Best Books We’ve Read in 2024 So Far

Our editors and critics review notable new fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Under Review

Why We Can’t Stop Arguing About Whether Trump Is a Fascist

In a new book, “Did it Happen Here?,” scholars debate what the F-word conceals and what it reveals.
Page-Turner

Percival Everett’s Philosophical Reply to “Huckleberry Finn”

In his new novel, “James,” Everett explores how an emblem of American slavery can write himself into being.

Movies

The Front Row

Med Hondo’s Vital Political Cinema Comes to New York

The Mauritanian filmmaker, long active in France, reveals the legacy of colonialism in society at large and in the art of movies.
The Front Row

The Best Bio-Pics Ever Made

The genre presents very particular artistic challenges, but here are thirty-three films that transcend them.
Notes on Hollywood

An Oscar-Night Diary: The Kenergy Was Palpable

“Barbie” received only one award, but the ceremony—and even the after-parties—brimmed with a simple ebullience.
The Front Row

The Oscars Are More Barbie Than They’ll Admit

The show wasn’t bad, but a shortsighted Academy was hard on this year’s best movies.

Food

Tables for Two

Exquisite Beach Vibes at Quique Crudo

A seafood-focussed counter from the owners of Casa Enrique—the first Mexican restaurant in the city to earn a Michelin star—opens in the West Village.
On and Off the Menu

Why New York Restaurants Are Going Members-Only

Ultra-exclusive places, like Rao’s and the Polo Bar, once seemed like rarities in the city’s dining scene. Now clubbiness is becoming a norm.
The Food Scene

Café Carmellini Is Fine Dining That Knows a Good Time

Andrew Carmellini’s latest venture is a serious, sophisticated restaurant, with white linens on the tables and bow-tied service captains, but it never sacrifices a sense of fun.
The Food Scene

Missy Robbins’s Lowest Key Pasta Paradiso

Robbins’s chic flagship restaurant Lilia is perpetually booked. Her follow-up, Misi, is stuck in a charmless space. With her latest place, Misipasta, I feel like Goldilocks.
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Photo Booth

A Begrudgingly Affectionate Portrait of the American Mall

“We’re all being manipulated in the mall,” the photographer Stephen DiRado says. But his photos elicit a certain nostalgia, almost in spite of themselves.

Television

On Television

“In the Know,” a Promising Satire of NPR That Never Quite Tunes In

The stop-motion comedy from Zach Woods, Brandon Gardner, and Mike Judge lacks the zingy acuity of its creators’ best work.
On Television

The Dark Delights of a Millennial “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”

Donald Glover and Maya Erskine star as spies-for-hire posing as husband and wife—and embody their generation’s emotional and economic malaise.
On Television

The Horrifying and Humanistic Ending of “The Curse”

In its surreal final episode, the Showtime series reaches great new heights.
On Television

Why Can’t We Quit “The Morning Show”?

Apple’s glossy experiment in prestige melodrama is utterly baffling—and must-watch TV.

The Theatre

The Theatre

Masterstroke Casting in “An Enemy of the People”

Jeremy Strong finds urgency and conversational menace in Ibsen’s 1882 drama, also with Michael Imperioli, in a new version by Amy Herzog, directed by Sam Gold.
The Theatre

The Art of the Robocall

“Lennox Mutual,” a one-on-one immersive theatrical experience, raises questions about performance, A.I., and corporate culture.
Comma Queen

A Musical for—and About—Grammar Sticklers

“The Angry Grammarian” asks whether two lovebirds can overcome differing opinions on the Oxford comma.
The Theatre

John Patrick Shanley Wrestles with God and Destiny

The playwright stages boxerly confrontations in a revival of “Doubt,” starring Liev Schreiber and Amy Ryan, and in the new show “Brooklyn Laundry,” with Cecily Strong.

Music

Musical Events

The Escher Quartet and Igor Levit Test Musical Limits

The chamber ensemble played all six of Bartók’s string quartets, and the pianist played devilishly difficult transcriptions of symphonic scores by Mahler and Beethoven.
Pop Music

Ian Munsick Puts the Western Back in Country

He brought his cowboy hat and ranch experience to Nashville, where he sings about the Wyoming life he left behind.
Listening Booth

Ariana Grande Takes Romantic Inventory on “Eternal Sunshine”

The pop star’s latest album charts the longing that accompanies the end of a relationship, but she also can’t resist playing the role of plucky provocateur.
Musical Events

How Arnold Schoenberg Changed Hollywood

He moved to California during the Nazi era, and his music—which ranged from the lushly melodic to the rigorously atonal—caught the ears of everyone from George Gershwin to James Dean.

More in Culture

The New Yorker Documentary

Flipping the Script on Trans Medical Encounters

Noah Schamus and Brit Fryer’s short film offers a vision of how physicians and trans patients can meet one another on equal footing.
Culture Desk

New York City Travel Posters Through the Decades

Images from a century past showcase colorful dreams of a magnetic metropolis.
Books

When New York Made Baseball and Baseball Made New York

The rise of the sport as we know it was centered in Gotham, where big stadiums, heroic characters, and epic sportswriting once produced a pastime that bound a city together.
Books

Briefly Noted Book Reviews

“Ashoka,” “Pax Economica,” “Here in Avalon,” and “Bitter Water Opera.”
Books

You Say You Want a Revolution. Do You Know What You Mean by That?

Two new books, by Fareed Zakaria and Nathan Perl-Rosenthal, demonstrate the concept’s allure and perils.
Cover Story

Mark Ulriksen’s “Standing Guard”

The artist depicts the tail-wagging occasion of the first signs of spring.
Culture Desk

The Heartbreak of an English Football Team

The Netflix series “Sunderland ’Til I Die” serves as a thesis both for fandom and for the inevitability of its disappointments.
The Current Cinema

The Form-Blurring Fury of “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World”

Radu Jude’s TikTok-tinged movie can be breathtakingly funny, but the absurdity is rooted in a powerful sense of outrage.
Goings On

Peter Morgan’s “Patriots” Heads to Broadway

Also: The soft-rock palette of Arlo Parks, the tearjerker musical “The Notebook,” Eric Fischl’s paintings of bourgeois cocoons, and more.
The Art World

The Whitney Biennial’s Taste for Flesh

The long-running survey has its usual missteps, but several works shine with wit and insight about the human body.