Culture

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story It’s a big and bitter surprise to discover that Marielle Heller’s new film, “Nightbitch,” is, for the most part, excruciating to watch. Heller made two of the best movies of recent…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Living through the onset of rapid global warming involves learning to roll with the punches. Increasingly, those are quite real and painful—this year saw, again, an accelerating toll of flood and…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Richard BrodyStaff writer You’re reading the Goings On newsletter, a guide to what we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week. Sign up to receive it in your in-box. The Criterion…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story In 2010, a private-equity firm called Cerberus Capital Management, which is named for the three-headed dog that is said to guard the underworld, bought six Catholic hospitals in Massachusetts and christened…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story In early October, the No. 5 most popular podcast on Spotify, above the Times’ “The Daily” and just behind “The Joe Rogan Experience,” was a month-old show called “Talk Tuah.” Prior…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Fully half of the best films ever—from Charlie Chaplin’s to Claude Lanzmann’s—are replete with cinematic selfies. Yet they are rare over all, perhaps because the camera is an unflinching diagnostician. The…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Nikki Giovanni died this week, at the age of eighty-one, as that rarest of things: a best-selling poet. Her work burst onto the scene in the nineteen-sixties already fully formed—it was…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story As soon as December rolls around, children everywhere start keeping an eye out for the iconic red-and-white Santa outfit. And there is perhaps nothing that preoccupies their imaginations more than the…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Midway through the A24 film “Sing Sing,” Divine G, an incarcerated man played with poise and panache by Colman Domingo, appears before a parole board. Divine G is the leading light…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The British realist director Mike Leigh loves the term “character actor,” which he uses often and with zeal. To him, it’s a term of great respect, meaning a performer who’s highly…