Critics at Large | The New Yorker

Ari Aster’s wildly divisive new movie “Eddington” drops audiences back into the chaos of May, 2020: a moment when the confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter protests, the rise in conspiracy theories, and political strife shattered something in our society. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz situate “Eddington” in the lineage of “the indigenous American berserk,” a phrase coined by Philip Roth in his 1997 novel “American Pastoral.” They consider an array of works that have tried to depict moments of social rupture throughout the country’s history—and debate whether the exercise is ultimately a futile one. “I think when you’re dealing with the realm of the American berserk, the big risk is getting the bends,” Schwartz says. “You're trying to describe a warping. So how do you not get warped in the process?” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Eddington” (2025) “Writing American Fiction,” by Philip Roth (Commentary) “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast,” by Tom Wolfe (Harper’s) “American Pastoral,” by Philip Roth “Natural Born Killers” (1994) “Benito Cereno,” by Herman Melville “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” by Tom Wolfe “Apocalypse Now” (1979) “Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse” (1991) “War Movies: What Are They Good For?” (The New Yorker) “Sorry to Bother You” (2018) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Audiences have been bemoaning the death of the romantic comedy for years, but the genre persists—albeit often in a different form from the screwballs of the nineteen-forties or the “chick flicks” of the eighties and nineties. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss their all-time favorite rom-coms and two new projects marketed as contemporary successors to the greats: Celine Song’s “Materialists” and Lena Dunham’s “Too Much.” Do these depictions of modern love—or at least the search for it—evoke the same breathless feeling as the classics do? “I wonder if the crisis in rom-coms has to do with a crisis in how adult women want to be or want to see themselves,” Schwartz says. “I think both of these projects are basically trying to speak to the fact that everyone's ideals are in question.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Sex, Love, and the State of the Rom-Com” (The New Yorker) “Materialists” (2025) “Too Much” (2025) “Working Girl” (1988) “You’ve Got Mail” (1998) “When Harry Met Sally” (1989) “Love & Basketball” (2000) “The Best Man” (1999) “Our Romance with Jane Austen” (The New Yorker) “Girls” (2012-17) “Adam’s Rib” (1949) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

It’s a confusing time to travel. Tourism is projected to hit record-breaking levels this year, and its toll on the culture and ecosystems of popular vacation spots is increasingly hard to ignore. Social media pushes hoards to places unable to withstand the traffic, while the rise of “last-chance” travel—the rush to see melting glaciers or deteriorating coral reefs before they’re gone forever—has turned the precarity of these destinations into a selling point. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz explore the question of why we travel. They trace the rich history of travel narratives, from the memoirs of Marco Polo and nineteenth-century accounts of the Grand Tour to shows like Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown” and HBO’s “The White Lotus.” Why are we compelled to pack a bag and set off, given the growing number of reasons not to do so? “One thing that’s really important for me as a traveller is the experience of being foreign,” Schwartz says. “I’m starting to realize that there are places I may never go, and this has actually made other people’s accounts of them, in the deeper sense, more important.” This episode originally aired on June 13, 2024. Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “The New Tourist,” by Paige McClanahan The “Lonely Planet” guidebooks “The Travels of Marco Polo,” by Rustichello da Pisa “Of Travel,” by Francis Bacon “The Innocents Abroad,” by Mark Twain “Self-Reliance,” by Ralph Waldo Emerson “Travels through France and Italy,” by Tobias Smollett “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown” (2013-18) “The White Lotus” (2021—) “Conan O’Brien Must Go” (2024) “It Just Got Easier to Visit a Vanishing Glacier. Is That a Good Thing?,” by Paige McClanahan (The New York Times) “The New Luxury Vacation: Being Dumped in the Middle of Nowhere,” by Ed Caesar (The New Yorker) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

The word “diva” comes from the world of opera, where divinely talented singers have enraptured audiences for centuries. But preternatural gifts often go hand in hand with bad behavior—as in the case of Patti LuPone, the blunt Broadway dame whose remarks about fellow-actresses in a recent New Yorker Profile quickly became a source of scandal. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and guest host Michael Schulman examine the figure of the diva, from Miss Piggy to Maria Callas, and consider whether our culture still rewards such personalities. “I don’t think we’ll ever stop being drawn to larger-than-life characters with messy, larger-than-life personal lives,” Schulman says. “There is a line that people can cross—but it’s constantly shifting.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “On ‘Succession,’ Jeremy Strong Doesn’t Get the Joke,” by Michael Schulman (The New Yorker) “Patti LuPone Is Done with Broadway—and Almost Everything Else,” by Michael Schulman (The New Yorker) “The Politics of the Oscar Race” (The New Yorker) “Evita” (1978) “Gypsy” (1959) “Company” (1970) “How Maria Callas Lost her Voice,” by Will Crutchfield (The New Yorker) “Liz & Dick” (2012) “The Muppets Take Manhattan” (1984) “The Problem With Ryan Murphy’s Wannabe Divas,” by Logan Scherer (The Atlantic) “Aretha Franklin’s American Soul,” by David Remnick (The New Yorker) “Feud: Bette and Joan” (2017) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 account of difficult facts. The hosts also consider other texts, from the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson and Tim Dlugos to a recent crop of standup-comedy specials about grief, and ask what such art can offer us in our current moment of turmoil. “Li is here as a kind of messenger, I think, to describe one of the farthest points of human experience,” Schwartz says. “This book is, in that way, sublime: words fail and fail and fail, but still they do something.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Things in Nature Merely Grow,” by Yiyun Li “Where Reasons End,” by Yiyun Li “‘My Sadness Is Not a Burden’: Author Yiyun Li on the Suicide of Both Her Sons,” by Sophie McBain (the Guardian) “The Year of Magical Thinking,” by Joan Didion “How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir,” by Molly Jong-Fast John Cale and Lou Reed’s “Songs for Drella” “Marc Maron: From Bleak to Dark” (2023) “Sarah Silverman: PostMortem” (2025) “Rachel Bloom: Death, Let Me Do My Special” (2024) “Rachel Bloom Has a Funny Song About Death,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker) “In Memoriam A. H. H.,” by Alfred Lord Tennyson The AIDS Memorial Quilt @theaidsmemorial on Instagram “G-9,” by Tim Dlugos New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 appeal. Then they look at how Austen herself has been characterized by readers and critics. We know relatively little about Austen as a person, but that hasn’t stopped us from trying to understand her psyche. It’s a difficult task in part because of the double-edged quality to her writing: Austen, although renowned for her love stories, is also a keen satirist of the Regency society in which these relationships play out. “I think irony is so key, but also sincerity,” Schwartz says. “These books are about total realism and total fantasy meeting in a way that is endlessly alluring.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Pride and Prejudice,” by Jane Austen “Persuasion,” by Jane Austen “Emma,” by Jane Austen “Mansfield Park,” by Jane Austen “Sense and Sensibility,” by Jane Austen “Northanger Abbey,” by Jane Austen “Virginia Woolf on Jane Austen” (The New Republic) Emily Nussbaum on “Breaking Bad” and the “Bad Fan” (The New Yorker) “How to Misread Jane Austen,” by Louis Menand (The New Yorker) “Miss Austen” (2025—) “Pride and Prejudice” (2005) Scenes Through Time’s “Mr. Darcy Yearning for 10 Minutes” Supercut New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

“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 real life, and consider the special place that the über-rich have held in the American imagination since the days of Edith Wharton and Upton Sinclair. How has the rise of such figures as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg changed our conception? And, as they’ve become more present in our daily lives—and more cartoonishly powerful—is it even possible to satirize them? “I think now that job is more important and also harder to do for artists,” says Schwartz, “simply because the culture is so enraptured with wealth." Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Mountainhead” (2025) “Succession” (2018-23) “Oil!,” by Upton Sinclair “There Will Be Blood” (2007) “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” (1984-95) “Three Faces of American Capitalism: Buffett, Musk, and Trump,” by John Cassidy (The New Yorker) “Joe Rogan, Hasan Piker, and the Art of the Hang” (The New Yorker) “On the Campaign Trail, Elon Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama,” by Kirsten Grind and Megan Twohey (The New York Times) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

“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 radical origins and the way it has evolved—for better or for worse—over the decades. What do the changes in “Sesame Street” ’s tone and content reveal about how parenting itself has changed? “The way that a children’s program proceeds does give us a hint as to the kinds of people that a society is producing,” Cunningham says. “And childhood is not the same as it was when we were kids.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Sesame Street” (1969–) “Rechov Sumsum” (1983–) “How We Got to Sesame Street,” by Jill Lepore (The New Yorker) “Cookie, Oscar, Grover, Herry, Ernie, and Company,” by Renata Adler (The New Yorker) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 consumed them over the years, and the hosts share their own formative obsessions, recalling how Brandy’s 1998 album, “Never Say Never,” defined a first experience at camp, and how a love of Jim Morrison’s music resulted in a teen-age pilgrimage to see his grave in Paris. But how do we square our past obsessions with our tastes and identities today? “Whatever we quote, whatever we make reference to, on so many levels is who we are,” Cunningham says. “It seems, to me, so precious.” This episode originally aired on June 27, 2024. Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Heathers” (1988) “Pump Up the Volume” (1990) The poetry of Sergei Yesenin The poetry of Alexander Pushkin GoldenEye 007 (1997) “Elvis” (2022) “Jailhouse Rock” (1957) “Pride & Prejudice” (2005) The Neapolitan Novels, by Elena Ferrante “Ramble On,” by Led Zeppelin “Never Say Never,” by Brandy “The Boy Is Mine,” by Brandy and Monica “The End,” by The Doors “The Last Waltz” (1978) “The Witches of Eastwick,” by John Updike “Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003) “Postcards from the Edge” (1990) “Rent” (1996) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 covering the event on the ground at the Vatican for The New Yorker. Then the hosts consider how recent cultural offerings, from last year’s “Conclave” to the HBO series “The Young Pope,” depict the power and pageantry of the Church, with varying degrees of reverence. Leo XIV’s first address as Pope began with a message of peace—an act that may have contributed to the flurry of interest and excitement around him. “The signs are hopeful,” Cunningham says. “And reasons to hope attract attention.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Francis, the TV Pope, Takes His Final Journey,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker) “White smoke, Black pope?,” by Nate Tinner Williams (The National Catholic Reporter) “The First American Pope,” by Paul Elie (The New Yorker) “Brideshead Revisited,” by Evelyn Waugh “Conclave” (2024) “Angels & Demons” (2009) “The Young Pope” (2016) “The Two Popes” (2019) Pope Leo XIII’s “Rerum Novarum” New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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,” Cunningham says. “But to share art with somebody is to offer them a companion.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: The New York Issue of The New Yorker (May 12 & 19, 2025) “Birds of America,” by Lorrie Moore “Eighth Grade” (2018) “Gilead,” by Marilynne Robinson “Danny, the Champion of the World,” by Roald Dahl “Midnight Diner” (2016-19) “Sentimental Education,” by Gustave Flaubert “Middlemarch,” by George Eliot “My Life in Middlemarch,” by Rebecca Mead “How the Method Made Acting Modern,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker) Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” “First Reformed” (2017) “Better Things” (2016-22) “The Functionally Dysfunctional Matriarchy of ‘Better Things,’ ” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker) “Odes,” by Sharon Olds TJ Douglas’s “Dying” Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” “Peppa Pig” (2004—) Aaron Copland’s “Billy the Kid” Dennis Wilson’s “Pacific Ocean Blue” Caetano Veloso’s “Ofertório” Crosby, Stills & Nash’s début album New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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-century texts as “The Vampyre” and “Dracula” to the “Twilight” moment of the aughts, when Edward Cullen, an ethical bloodsucker committed to abstinence, turned the vampire from a predatory outsider into a Y.A. heartthrob. What do he and his ilk have to say today? “The vampire is the one who can unsettle our notions, and maybe give us new notions,” Cunningham says. “The vampire comes in and asks, ‘But have you considered this?’ ” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Sinners” (2025) “Black Panther” (2018) “The Vampyre,” by John Polidori “In the Blood,” by Joan Acocella (The New Yorker) “Dracula,” by Bram Stoker “Dracula” (1931) “Love at First Bite” (1979) “The Lost Boys” (1987) “True Blood” (2008–14) “Twilight” (2008) “What We Do in the Shadows” (2019–24) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 Alexandra Schwartz discuss how “Warfare” ’s visceral account brings us closer to a certain kind of truth, while also creating a space into which viewers can project their own ideologies. The hosts consider how artists have historically portrayed conflict and its aftermath—referencing Virginia Woolf’s depiction of a shell-shocked soldier in “Mrs. Dalloway” and Vietnam-era classics such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Full Metal Jacket”—and how “Warfare,” with its emphasis on firsthand experience, marks a departure from much of what came before. “That personal tinge to me seems to be characteristic of the age,” Cunningham says. “Part of the emotional appeal is, This happened, and I’m telling you. It’s not diaristic—but it is testimonial.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Warfare” (2025) “Apocalypse Now” (1979) “Full Metal Jacket” (1987) “Beau Travail” (1999) “Saving Private Ryan” (1998) “The Hurt Locker” (2008) “Zero Dark Thirty” (2012) “Barry” (2018–23) “Mrs. Dalloway,” by Virginia Woolf “In Flanders Fields,” by John McCrae New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 satire “The Player.” In “The Studio,” a new Apple TV+ series, Seth Rogen plays a hapless exec who’s convinced that art-house filmmaking and commercial success can go hand in hand. At a moment when theatregoing is on the decline and the industry is hyper-focussed on existing I.P., that sentiment feels more naïve than realistic. And yet the show’s affection for the golden age of cinema is infectious—and perhaps even cause for optimism. “Early auteurs were people who knew Hollywood and could marshal its resources toward the benefit of their vision,” Cunningham says. “I wonder if now is the time for people who are seasoned in the way of Hollywood to really think about how it can be angled toward making art.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “The Studio” (2025–) “Veep” (2012-19) “The Player” (1992) “The Pat Hobby Stories,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald “Picture,” by Lillian Ross “Why Los Angeles Is Becoming a Production Graveyard,” by Winston Cho (The Hollywood Reporter) The New Yorker’s Oscars Live Blog New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 played in society over the centuries. They discuss Kelsey McKinney’s new book on the topic, “You Didn’t Hear This from Me,” which Schwartz recently reviewed in The New Yorker, and consider instructive cultural examples—from the Old Testament to “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” Today, many celebrities have embraced being talked about as a badge of honor, even as new technologies allow questionable assertions about anyone—famous or otherwise—to spread more freely and quickly than ever before. “Just being in public makes you potentially fodder for gossip,” Schwartz says. “I do worry about a world in which privacy is compromised for everybody.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “You Didn’t Hear This from Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip,” by Kelsey McKinney “Is Gossip Good for Us?,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker) “A Lover’s Discourse,” by Roland Barthes “Grease” (1978) “The House of Mirth,” by Edith Wharton “The Custom of the Country,” by Edith Wharton “Moses, Man of the Mountain,” by Zora Neale Hurston “Emma,” by Jane Austen “Gossip Girl” (2007-12) “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” (2010—) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by fellow staff writer Andrew Marantz to discuss where Rogan’s podcast sits within a growing new-media ecosystem that hinges on parasociality. Marantz recently profiled the Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who spends hours online every day addressing a viewership of tens or hundreds of thousands, to whom he issues leftist takes on the news in real time—alongside a healthy dose of gym content. Figures like Rogan and Piker, both of whom have won the loyalty of young men, stand to shape not only the views of their audiences but the art of politics itself. “Being able to hang in a kind of unscripted way. . . I think it just becomes more and more essential,” says Marantz. “There turns out to be a huge voting bloc of people who will, No. 1, vibe with you, and, No. 2, think about what you’re saying.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: Joe Rogan’s November, 2024 interview with Theo Von Joe Rogan’s February, 2025 interview with Elon Musk “The Battle for the Bros,” by Andrew Marantz (The New Yorker) Hasan Piker’s Twitch channel “This Is Gavin Newsom” New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 view. In a special live show celebrating The New Yorker’s centenary, the hosts of Critics at Large discuss this and other examples drawn from the magazine’s archives, including Dorothy Parker’s 1928 takedown of “Winnie-the-Pooh” and Pauline Kael’s assessment of Al Pacino as “a lump” at the center of “Scarface.” These pieces reveal something essential about the role of criticism and the value of thinking through a work’s artistic merits (or lack thereof) on the page. “I felt all these feelings while reading Terrence Rafferty tearing to shreds ‘When Harry Met Sally…,’ ” Alexandra Schwartz says. “But it made the movie come alive for me again, to have to dispute it with the critic.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Lies, Lies, and More Lies,” by Terrence Rafferty (The New Yorker) “Bitches and Witches,” by John Lahr (The New Yorker) “Don’t Shoot the Book-Reviewer; He’s Doing the Best He Can,” by Clifton Fadiman (The New Yorker) “The Feminine Mystique,” by Pauline Kael (The New Yorker) “The Wizard of Hollywood,” by Russell Maloney (The New Yorker) “The Fake Force of Tony Montana,” by Pauline Kael (The New Yorker) “Renoir’s Problem Nudes,” by Peter Schjeldahl (The New Yorker) “Humans of New York and the Cavalier Consumption of Others,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker) “The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck,” by Naomi Fry (The New Yorker) “President Killers and Princess Diana Find Musical Immortality,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker) “Obscure Objects of Desire: On Jeffrey Eugenides,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The Nation) “Reading ‘The House at Pooh Corner,’ ” by Dorothy Parker (The New Yorker) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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 to choose has evolved over the centuries. Today, an abundance of choice in one sphere often masks a lack of choice in others—and, with so much focus on individual rather than collective decision-making, the glut of options can contribute to a profound sense of alienation. “When all you do is choose, choose, choose, what you do is end up by yourself,” Cunningham says. “Putting yourself with people seems to be one of the salves.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Could Anyone Keep Track of This Year’s Microtrends?” by Danielle Cohen (The Cut) “The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life,” by Sophia Rosenfeld “The Federalist Papers,” by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay “What Does It Take to Quit Shopping? Mute, Delete and Unsubscribe,” by Jordyn Holman and Aimee Ortiz (The New York Times) New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

“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 rarely seen onscreen. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz parse how “The Pitt” fits alongside beloved medical shows like “E.R.” and “Grey’s Anatomy.” While the new series upholds many of the tropes of the genre, it’s set apart by its emphasis on accuracy and on the daily struggles—and rewards—of laboring toward a collective goal. At the heart of “The Pitt” is a question that, in 2025, is top of mind for many of us: does the for-profit medical system actually allow for humane care? “Faith in these institutions has eroded,” Schwartz says. “At the low point of such faith and trust, what happens to build it back?” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “The Pitt” (2025-) “E.R.” (1994-2009) “Grey’s Anatomy” (2005-) “This Is Going to Hurt” (2022) “House” (2004-12) “The Bear” (2022–) Doctor Mike’s YouTube channel Steveoie’s YouTube channel New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

“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, and Alexandra Schwartz trace the trope of the “double” over time, from its nineteenth-century origins in such works as “Jane Eyre” and “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” to the “passing” novels of the nineteen-twenties and thirties. Today’s Oscar front-runners are rife with doubles, too, including those seen in the Demi Moore-led body-horror film “The Substance” and “The Apprentice,” in which a young Donald Trump fashions himself in the image of his mentor, Roy Cohn. At a time when technological advances and social platforms allow us to present—or to engineer—an optimized version of our lives, it’s no wonder our second selves are haunting us anew. “I think the double will always exist because of the hope for wholeness,” Cunningham says. “It's such a strong desire that the shadow of that whole self—the doppelgänger—will always be lurking at the edges of our imagination.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics: “Severance” (2022—) “The Substance” (2024) “A Different Man” (2024) “Frankenstein,” by Mary Shelley “The Apprentice” (2024) “Passing,” by Nella Larsen Key and Peele’s sketch “Phone Call” “Jane Eyre,” by Charlotte Brontë “Lisa and Lottie,” by Erich Kästner William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” “The Uncanny,” by Sigmund Freud Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices