Critics at Large | The New Yorker

“Heated Rivalry,” a low-budget Canadian series that began streaming on HBO Max late last year, quickly made the leap from unexpected word-of-mouth success to full-blown cultural phenomenon. The show, which follows a pair of professional hockey players who fall for each other, has been name-checked by everyone from the N.H.L. commissioner to Zohran Mamdani; its two young leads, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, just served as Olympic torch-bearers. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz unpack “Heated Rivalry” ’s appeal, considering its embrace of earnestness and its place in a broader lineage of stories about gay love. The way the protagonists are forced to hide their relationship recalls dramas set in earlier eras, from E. M. Forster’s “Maurice” to Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain”—but the function of the closet in art is ever-evolving. The hosts also discuss “Pillion,” a new film starring Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling, which features parents who are supportive of their son’s gayness but in the dark about his life as a sub. “It’s interesting, these contemporary stories where gay relationships are, in the larger culture, totally accepted—and that there are sort of closets within closets,” Cunningham says. “There’s a deeper place that others cannot go.”See Critics at Large live: the hosts will be discussing “Wuthering Heights” onstage at the 92nd Street Y on February 19th. Both in-person and streaming tickets are available. Buy now »Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Heated Rivalry” (2025–)“Pillion” (2026)Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan NovelsEsther Perel’s response to “Heated Rivalry”The novels of Sally Rooney“The Delicious Anticipation–and, Yes, Release—of ‘Heated Rivalry,’ ” by Naomi Fry (The New Yorker)“Maurice,” by E. M. Forster“Brokeback Mountain” (2005)“The Price of Salt,” by Patricia Highsmith“Carol” (2015)“My Own Private Idaho” (1991)“The Swimming-Pool Library,” by Alan Hollinghurst“The Loves of My Life,” by Edmund White“I Love L.A.” (2025–)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 which 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

Someone looking to understand America might do well to study the nation’s embrace of football. N.F.L. games regularly outperform anything else on television, and, in 2025, some hundred and twenty-seven million viewers tuned into the Super Bowl—more than ever before. As this year’s championship approaches, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by their fellow New Yorker writer Louisa Thomas to unpack the sport’s allure, which has persisted despite increasingly dire evidence of the danger it poses to players’ health. Together, they discuss football’s origins as a “war game,” how fictional depictions have contributed to its mythos, and the state of play today. “A very compelling reason for football’s popularity is that it's not only a simulation of war,” Thomas says. “It’s a simulation of community.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Friday Night Lights” (2006–11)“The West Wing” (1999–2006)“Football,” by Chuck Klosterman“The End of the NFL’s Concussion Crisis,” by Reeves Wiedeman (New York magazine)See Critics at Large live at 92NY on February 19: https://www.92ny.org/event/vinson-cunningham-naomi-fry-and-alexandra-schwartzNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which 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

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.”This episode originally aired on June 12, 2025. 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” SupercutSee Critics at Large live at 92NY on February 19: https://www.92ny.org/event/vinson-cunningham-naomi-fry-and-alexandra-schwartzNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which 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

We all know the formula: it begins with a dead body, and quickly introduces a motley crew of outlandish characters, each with a motive for murder. The whodunnit genre has been a cultural fixture since the days of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie—the latter of whom has been outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Recently, though, the murder mystery has achieved a new level of saturation, with streaming services offering up a seemingly endless supply of glossy thrillers. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how these new entries are updating the classic form. “Wake Up Dead Man,” the latest of Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” movies, slyly incorporates social commentary, while shows like “Search Party” and “Only Murders in the Building” poke fun at the figure of the citizen sleuth. In our era of conspiracy theories and vigilante actors, there’s also a dark side to the archetype. “This desire to be the hero and to follow the logical trails and take things into your own hands—it's very appealing, if you do it right,” Schwartz says. “It’s great if you catch the right guy. If you don’t, and you catch the wrong one, the entire foundation of society crumbles.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Knives Out” (2019)“Glass Onion” (2022)“Wake Up Dead Man” (2025)“Big Little Lies” (2017-)“The White Lotus” (2021-)“And Then There Were None,” by Agatha Christie “Rian Johnson Is an Agatha Christie for the Netflix Age,” by Anna Russell (The New Yorker)“The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side: A Miss Marple Mystery,” by Agatha Christie“Only Murders in the Building” (2021-)“Nicole Kidman Gives Us What We Want in the Silly, Soapy ‘Perfect Couple,’ ” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)“The Residence” (2025)“The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” by Arthur Conan Doyle“Search Party” (2016-22)“The Hound of the Baskervilles,” by Arthur Conan DoyleThe “Encyclopedia Brown” books“Clue” (1985)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 which 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 American musical is in a state of flux. Today’s Broadway offerings are mostly jukebox musicals and blatant I.P. grabs; original ideas are few and far between. Meanwhile, Jon M. Chu’s earnest (and lengthy) two-part adaptation of “Wicked”—an origin story for the Wicked Witch of the West that first premièred on the Great White Way over twenty years ago—has struck a chord with today’s audiences. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss “Wicked” before stepping back to trace the evolution of the musical form, from the first shows to marry song and story in the nineteen-twenties to the seventies-era innovations of figures like Stephen Sondheim. Amid the massive commercial, technological, and aesthetic shifts of the last century, how has the form changed, and why has it endured? “People who don’t like musicals will often criticize their artificiality,” Schwartz says. “Some things in life are so heightened . . . yet they’re part of the real. Why not put them to music and have singing be part of it?”This episode originally aired on December 12, 2024.Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Wicked” (2024)“The Animals That Made It All Worth It,” by Naomi Fry (The New Yorker)“Ben Shapiro Reviews ‘Wicked’ ”“Frozen” (2013)“Hair” (1979)“The Sound of Music” (1965)“Anything Goes” (1934)“Show Boat” (1927)“Oklahoma” (1943)“Mean Girls” (2017)“Hamilton” (2015)“Wicked” (2003)“A Strange Loop” (2019)“Teeth” (2024)“Kimberly Akimbo” (2021)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 which 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

Padma Lakshmi is unquestionably a woman of taste. As a host of the beloved food-competition series “Top Chef” and the star of the culinary docuseries “Taste the Nation,” she’s spent nearly two decades artfully conveying—and critiquing—flavors and aromas for an audience. Before that, she was a fashion writer and model, cultivating her own sense of what’s worth wearing and seeing. And she isn’t done evolving: she’s recently begun performing standup comedy, an art form with a notoriously steep learning curve. In a live taping at The New Yorker Festival, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz talk with Lakshmi about the difference between discernment and pickiness, how travel has expanded her taste, and her approach to rendering judgement on TV. “I see my job as helping,” Lakshmi says. “I see my job as being the person in the kitchen who’s saying, ‘Does this need a little salt?’ ”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Top Chef” (2006—)“Taste the Nation” (2020-23)“RuPaul’s Drag Race” (2009—)“American Idol” (2002—)“Project Runway” (2004—)“Padma’s All American,” by Padma Lakshmi“Padma Lakshmi Walks Into a Bar,” by Helen Rosner (The New Yorker)“Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” (The New Yorker)Dijon’s “Baby”“Frankenstein” (2025)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 which 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

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