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The New Yorker

Critics at Large is a weekly culture podcast from The New Yorker. Every Thursday, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss current obsessions, classic texts they’re revisiting with fresh eyes, and trends that are emerging across books, television, film, and more. The show runs the gamut of the arts and pop culture, with lively, surprising conversations about everything from Salman Rushdie to “The Real Housewives.” Through rigorous analysis and behind-the-scenes insights into The New Yorker’s reporting, the magazine’s critics help listeners make sense of our moment—and how we got here.

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

On August 7, 1985, five family members were shot dead in their English country manor, Whitehouse Farm. It looked like an open-and-shut case. But the New Yorker staff writer Heidi Blake finds that almost nothing about this story is as it seems. 

New Yorker subscribers get early, ad-free access to “Blood Relatives.” In Apple Podcasts, tap the link at the top of the feed to subscribe or link an existing subscription. Or visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe and listen in the New Yorker app. 

In the Dark has merch! Buy specially designed hats, T-shirts, and totes for yourself or a loved one at store.newyorker.com. 

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In the Dark: Blood Relatives, Episode 1

Generative A.I., once an uncanny novelty, is now being used to create not only images and videos but entire “artists.” Its boosters claim that the technology is merely a tool to facilitate human creativity; the major use cases we’ve seen thus far—and the money being poured into these projects—tell a different story. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the output of Timbaland’s A.I. rapper TaTa Taktumi and the synthetic actress Tilly Norwood. They also look back at movies and television that imagined what our age of A.I. would look like, from “2001: A Space Odyssey” onward. “A.I. has been a source of fascination, of terror, of appeal,” Schwartz says. “It’s the human id in virtual form—at least in human-made art.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

TaTa Taktumi’s “Glitch x Pulse”
Cardi B’s “Am I the Drama?”
“Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE” (2024)
“Dear Tilly Norwood,” by Betty Gilpin (The Hollywood Reporter)
Tilly Norwood’s Instagram account
“Holly Herndon’s Infinite Art,” by Anna Wiener (The New Yorker)
“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)
“The Morning Show” (2019—)
“Simone” (2002)
“Blade Runner” (1982)
“Ex Machina” (2014)
“The Man Who Sells Unsellable New York Apartments,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” by Walter Benjamin
“The Death of the Author,” by Roland Barthes

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. 

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

In the latest installment of the Critics at Large advice series, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz answer listeners’ questions about a range of conundrums. Some seek to immerse themselves in fictional worlds; others look for help with their own creative practices. Plus, the actor Morgan Spector (best known as Mr. Russell on “The Gilded Age”) calls in to ask the critics about poetry. “As always after we do this kind of show, my faith in humankind is restored,” Fry says. “Our listeners want to connect—they want to grow. They’re looking to pass through life not just on autopilot but to look to culture for meaning.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Ethan Hawke: Give yourself permission to be creative” (TED)
The poetry of Diane Seuss
“Lilacs,” by Rainer Diana Hamilton
“The Wire” (2002-8)
“The Americans” (2013-18)
“Billy Joel: And So It Goes” (2025)
“The Good Wife” (2009-16)
“30 Rock” (2006-13)
“How a Billionaire Owner Brought Turmoil and Trouble to Sotheby’s,” by Sam Knight (The New Yorker)
“Lupin” (2021—)
“The First Wives Club” (1996)
“A Quick Killing in Art,” by Phoebe Hoban
“Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?” by Sam Graham-Felsen (the New York Times Magazine)
Aaron Karo and Matt Ritter’s “Man of the Year”
“The Archers” (1951—)
“How to Cook a Wolf,” by M. F. K. Fisher
“Home Cooking,” by Laurie Colwin
“Fresh Air with Terry Gross”
“What Was Paul Gauguin Looking For?,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)
“Wild Thing,” by Sue Prideaux
“Mr. Turner” (2014)
“Topsy-Turvy” (1999)
“The Work of Art: How Something Comes from Nothing,” by Adam Moss
Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Watch Me Work”

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

I Need a Critic: October, 2025, Edition

Scrutiny of the figure of the “trad wife” has hit a fever pitch. These influencers’ accounts feature kempt, feminine women embracing hyper-traditional roles in marriage and home-making—and, in doing so, garnering millions of followers. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss standout practitioners of the “trad” life style, including Nara Smith, who makes cereal and toothpaste from scratch, and Hannah Neeleman, who, posting under the handle @ballerinafarm, presents a life caring for eight children in rural Utah as a bucolic fantasy. The hosts also discuss “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” a reality-television show on Hulu about a group of Mormon influencers engulfed in scandal, whose notions of female empowerment read as a quaint reversal of the trad-wife trend. A common defense of a life style that some would call regressive is that it’s a personal choice, devoid of political meaning. But this gloss is complicated by societal changes such as the erosion of women’s rights in America and skyrocketing child-care costs. “In American society, the way choice works has everything to do with child-care options, financial options,” Schwartz says. “When you talk about the idea of choice, are we just talking about false choices?” 

This episode originally aired on Sept. 5, 2024. 

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

@ballerinafarm
@gwenthemilkmaid
@naraazizasmith
“How Lucky Blue and Nara Aziza Smith Made Viral Internet Fame From Scratch,” by Carrie Battan (GQ)
“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” (2024–)
@esteecwilliams
“Mad Men” (2007-15)
The Little House on the Prairie series, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
“Wilder Women,” by Judith Thurman (The New Yorker)
“Meet the Queen of the “Trad Wives” (and Her Eight Children),” by Megan Agnew (The Times of London) 

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

How the Trad Wife Took Over

Over the course of his three-decade career, the director Paul Thomas Anderson has dramatized the nineteen-seventies porn industry (“Boogie Nights”), the Californian oil boom (“There Will Be Blood”), and a mid-century London fashion house (“Phantom Thread”). Now he’s trained his gaze on present-day America. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss Anderson’s latest: the sprawling, surprisingly political blockbuster “One Battle After Another.” They contextualize the new work within his œuvre—and debate what his portrayal of militant left-wing activists and the white-supremacist right has to say about the state of the nation. “I think our present reality has far outstripped most depictions of it,” Schwartz says. “Slipping it into this kind of caper—is that delivering us to somewhere that gets people to think or to look or to feel?”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“One Battle After Another” (2025)
“Vineland,” by Thomas Pynchon
“Inherent Vice” (2014)
“Boogie Nights” (1997)
“The Master” (2012)
“Punch-Drunk Love” (2002)
“There Will Be Blood” (2007)
“Phantom Thread” (2017)
“ ‘Eddington’ and the American Berserk” (The New Yorker)
Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not be Televised”

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

One Paul Thomas Anderson Film After Another

In contemporary cookbooks—and in the burgeoning realm of online cooking content—there’s often a life style on display alongside the recipes. Samin Nosrat is a fixture of this landscape, and her new book, “Good Things,” aims to pick up where her mega-best-seller “Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” left off, giving people a new framework for feeding themselves and loved ones. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz share their personal experiences making dishes from “Good Things.” Then, New Yorker staff writer Helen Rosner joins them to explain the state of home cooking today, from the rise of culinary influencers and the New York Times Cooking app to the aspirational dimension of what’s on offer. “Not only is cooking supposed to be part of a life, but, specifically, it can be a part of the life of the mind,” Cunningham says. “Your choices in the kitchen can be deeply connected to your desires outside of the kitchen.”

Read, watch, and cook with the critics:

“Tender at the Bone,” by Ruth Reichl
“Heartburn,” by Nora Ephron
“Good Things,” by Samin Nosrat
“Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat,” by Samin Nosrat
“The Joylessness of Cooking,” by Helen Rosner (The New Yorker)
“All-Consuming,” by Ruby Tandoh
@wishbonekitchen
“Jerusalem,” by Yotam Ottolenghi
“Ottolenghi Simple,” by Yotam Ottolenghi
“Dining In,” by Alison Roman
“Nothing Fancy,” by Alison Roman
“Alison Roman Cooks Thanksgiving in a (Very) Small Kitchen” (The New York Times)
“Let’s Party,” by Dan Pelosi
“How to Cook Everything,” by Mark Bittman
“Serial Monogamy,” by Nora Ephron (The New Yorker)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and po…

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

What's Cooking?

In the past twenty years, more than a third of all American newspapers have shuttered; trust in media institutions is now at a historic low. And yet we’re still drawn to depictions of reporters onscreen. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss two recent entries into the genre: “The Paper,” a workplace comedy from Greg Daniels and Michael Koman set at a failing local newspaper, and “The Lowdown,” a crime noir from Sterlin Harjo about a freelancer and self-styled “truthstorian.” They compare these new works with earlier examples to illuminate how the practice—and perception—of journalism has changed. In classics such as “All the President’s Men,” Fry notes, “The airing of the facts via the news, via this character of the journalist, makes us feel like it’s gonna be O.K. Like, the truth is out!” Today, she says, “I’m not sure we treat newsmaking the same way.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“The Paper” (2025–)
“The Lowdown” (2025–)
“All the President’s Men” (1976)
“The China Syndrome” (1979)
“Citizen Kane” (1941)
“The Gilded Age” (2022–)
“The Office” (2005–13)
“‘The Paper’ Is Old News,” by Inkoo Kang (The New Yorker)
Brian Stelter’s Reliable Sources newsletter
“Spotlight” (2015)
“Succession” (2018–23)
“My Undesirable Friends” (2025)
404 Media

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

“The Paper,” “The Lowdown,” and the Drama of Journalism

Last week, it was announced that Polymarket—a site where you can bet on basically anything, from the likelihood of a government shutdown to the winner of New York City’s mayoral race—will be allowed to operate in the U.S. The decision was the culmination of a broader trend: since 2018, some thirty-nine states have legalized sports betting, and the rise of online gambling has made the practice a part of daily life. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider how platforms like Polymarket and DraftKings have changed our relationship to what we’re wagering on. They also examine the way games of chance have been depicted in literature and film—and our enduring susceptibility, in art and otherwise, to the promise of a hot streak. “Gambling is a way for the individual to test themselves,” Schwartz says. “It comes back to this fundamental question everyone has about themselves, which is: do I got it, or don’t I?”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Shayne Coplan’s Big Bet Is Paying Off,” by Jen Wieczner (New York Magazine)
“Online Gambling Is Changing Sports for the Worse,” by Jay Caspian Kang (The New Yorker)
“Daniel Deronda,” by George Eliot
“The Noble Hustle,” by Colson Whitehead
“Rounders” (1998)
“War and Peace,” by Leo Tolstoy
“The Sopranos” (1999–2007)
“Uncut Gems” (2019)
“The Big Short” (2015)
“To Catch a Thief” (1955)
“Casino Royale” (2006)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Why We're All In on Gambling

Though the character known as Labubu has been around for a decade, the toy version—around six inches tall, sporting bunny ears and a demonic grin—is only just becoming a must-have accessory. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz join the trend and unbox their very own Labubu before diving into the history of such fads. They draw a distinction between collecting and speculating, from the seventeenth-century Dutch tulip mania through to the eBay-fuelled Beanie Baby craze of the nineteen-nineties and the far more recent rise and fall of non-fungible tokens. And they attempt to understand why this slightly unsettling children’s toy is now inspiring such intense reactions. “People were flooding my D.M.s, like, ‘This thing is the end of culture,’ ” Schwartz says. “This thing is not the end of culture. It’s a point on a line.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“The Monsters,” by Kasing Lung
“Where the Wild Things Are,” by Maurice Sendak
“What the Labubu Obsession Says About Us,” by Jia Tolentino (The New Yorker)
“A Dubai Chocolate Theory of the Internet” (“Search Engine”)
“IRL Brain Rot and the Lure of the Labubu,” by Kyle Chayka (The New Yorker)
“Little House on the Prairie,” by Laura Ingalls Wilder
“Toy Story” (1995)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Our Fads, Ourselves

In the early days of the Hollywood studio system, producers exerted far greater creative control than any individual director. Then, in the mid-twentieth century, a group of young French critics issued a cri du coeur that gave rise to the figure of the auteur: visionary filmmakers ranging from Jean-Luc Godard to Martin Scorsese and Wes Anderson. In the final installment of this year’s Critics at Large interview series, Vinson Cunningham talks with fellow staff writer Richard Brody about the origins of auteur theory, and about the lengths to which directors have gone for artistic freedom in the decades since. They take Spike Lee’s body of work as a case study, considering his new movie “Highest 2 Lowest” and how his filmmaking sensibility reflects his singular view of the world. “Style is a funny thing in movies,” Brody says. “If it’s any good, it’s not inseparable from substance. It is substance.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“The 400 Blows” (1959)
“Breathless” (1960)
“Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962,” by Andrew Sarris (Film Culture)
“Circles and Squares,” by Pauline Kael (Film Quarterly)
“Martin Scorsese on Making ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ ” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker)
“The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013)
“Spike Lee Comes Home,” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker)
“Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” (2014)
“Red Hook Summer” (2012)
“A Great Film Reveals Itself in Five Minutes,” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker)
“Highest 2 Lowest” (2025)
“ ‘Highest 2 Lowest’ Marks a Conservative Pivot for Spike Lee,” by Richard Brody (The New Yorker)
“Do the Right Thing” (1989)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker that explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

How to Watch a Movie

Until recently, tarot, astrology, and spiritualism—practices often shorthanded simply as woo-woo—were the stuff of dusty psychic parlors and seventies nostalgia. But today, mysticism has permeated mainstream culture. In the third and final installment of the Critics at Large interview series, Vinson Cunningham talks with Jennifer Wilson, a contributing writer at The New Yorker, about this new age of magical thinking. They discuss how “woo” has seeped into our everyday lives through apps such as Co-Star, and how recent TV shows and novels have embraced supernatural themes. With the rise of cryptocurrency and sports betting, speculation about the future has become a fundamental part of our economy, too. “Maybe people would feel less uncertainty that pushes them to consult with astrology and tarot-card readers if there were more security in the present,” Wilson says. “In so many ways, this is a problem we’ve created.” And a bonus: Vinson gets a tarot reading of his own.
Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“The Curse” (2023)
@astropoets
“True Detective” (2014-)
“This Is Me . . . Now: A Love Story” (2024)
“The White Lotus” (2021-)
“Long Island Compromise,” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
“ ‘The Curse’ and the Magical Thinking of the Speculative Economy,” by Jennifer Wilson
“Look Into My Eyes” (2024)
“Speculative Communities: Living with Uncertainty in a Financialized World,” by Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou

 
New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. 

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Tarot, Tech, and Our Age of Magical Thinking

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