If “Wicked, Part I” and “Gladiator II” are not getting you into the theatre this weekend, Justin Chang, The New Yorker’s film critic, offers three other films coming out this holiday season which are “among the most thrilling that I've seen this year.” He recommends “Nickel Boys,” based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead and directed by RaMell Ross; “The Brutalist,” starring Adrian Brody; and “Hard Truths,” directed by Mike Leigh. These are heavy subjects—not traditional hol...
Dec 03, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast “The Thanksgiving Play” is a play about the making of a play. Four performers struggle to devise a Thanksgiving performance that’s respectful of Native peoples, historically accurate (while not too grim for white audiences), and also inclusive to the actors themselves. A train wreck ensues. “First it’s fun. . . . You get to have a good time in the theatre. I would say that’s the sugar, and then there’s the medicine,” the playwright Larissa FastHorse tells the staff writer Vinson Cunningham. “The...
Nov 29, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sarah McBride just became the first transgender person elected to the United States Congress. A Democrat, she worked for the Human Rights Campaign before serving in the Delaware State Senate. McBride will be sworn in in January, but opponents of trans rights in Congress have already mobilized against her: Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced a bathroom bill that would require McBride to use the men’s bathroom, and Speaker Mike Johnson made a statement denying trans identity alt...
Nov 26, 2024•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Since the founding of the nation, just 116 people have served as Supreme Court Justices; the 116th is Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by President Biden in 2022. Jackson joined a Court with six conservative Justices setting a new era of jurisprudence. She took her seat just days after the Dobbs decision, when Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion overturned Roe v. Wade. She wrote a blistering dissent to the Harvard decision, which ended affirmative action in college admissions, in which she a...
Nov 22, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Danielle Deadwyler, who first grabbed the spotlight for her performance as Emmett Till’s mother in the film “Till,” stars in a new film called “The Piano Lesson”—one of August Wilson’s Century Cycle plays about Black life in Pittsburgh. Denzel Washington has committed to adapting and producing all ten of Wilson’s Century Cycle plays; “The Piano Lesson” is directed by his son Malcolm, and his other son John David co-stars. Deadwyler plays Berniece, a widow who has kept the family piano after her ...
Nov 19, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast American voters have elected a President with broadly, overtly authoritarian aims. It’s hardly the first time that the democratic process has brought an anti-democratic leader to power. The political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, who both teach at Harvard, assert that we shouldn’t be shocked by the Presidential result. “It's not up to voters to defend a democracy,” Levitsky says. “That’s asking far, far too much of voters, to cast their ballot on the basis of some set of abstrac...
Nov 15, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sam Gold has directed five Shakespeare tragedies, but his latest, “Romeo + Juliet,” is something different—a loud, clubby production designed to attract audiences the age of its protagonists. “It’s as if the teens from ‘Euphoria’ decided that they had to do Shakespeare,” Vinson Cunningham said, “and this is what they came up with.” The production stars Rachel Zegler, who starred in Steven Spielberg’s remake of “ West Side Story ,” and Kit Connor, of the Gen Z Netflix hit “Heartstopper,” and feat...
Nov 12, 2024•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In the end, Donald Trump’s rhetoric of another stolen election, and his opponents’ warnings that he would once again attempt to subvert a loss, were moot. Trump, a convicted felon and sexual abuser, won not only the Electoral College, but the popular vote—the first time for a Republican President since 2004. Democrats lost almost every swing state, even as abortion-rights ballot measures found favor in some conservative states. David Remnick joins The Political Scene ’s weekly Washington roundta...
Nov 08, 2024•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast It made news when the retired general John Kelly, Donald Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, said that the former President fit the definition of a fascist. The MSNBC host Rachel Maddow could hardly be blamed if she said, I told you so. Maddow’s podcast “Ultra” and her book “ Prequel ” detail the history of Nazi and far-right movements in America in the twentieth century—and the people who fought them. “When we talk about making America great again and we talk about the threat of an authorit...
Nov 04, 2024•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast In recent weeks and months, dozens of prominent security and military officials and Republican politicians have come out against Donald Trump, declaring him a security threat, unfit for office, and, in some cases, a fascist. Way out in front of this movement was Liz Cheney. Up until 2021, she was the third-ranking Republican in Congress, but after the January 6th insurrection she voted to impeach Trump. She then served as vice-chair of the House Select Committee on the January 6th attack. She mu...
Nov 01, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast One aspect of the Vice-President’s background that’s relatively overlooked, and yet critical to understanding her, is her membership in the sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. “In one of the bylaws,” the writer Jazmine Hughes tells David Remnick, “it says that the mission of the organization, among many, is to uplift the social status of the Negro.” Far from a Greek party club, A.K.A. "is an identity” to its members. When Donald Trump insinuated that Kamala Harris had “turned Black,” in his words, for p...
Oct 29, 2024•36 min•Ep 972•Transcript available on Metacast In these final days of the Presidential campaign, Vice-President Kamala Harris has been getting in front of voters as much as she can. Given the polls showing shaky support among Black men, one man she absolutely had to talk to was Lenard McKelvey, much better known as Charlamagne tha God. As a co-host of the syndicated “Breakfast Club” morning radio show, Charlamagne has interviewed Presidential candidates such as Harris, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, as well as New York City’s embattled Mayo...
Oct 25, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast If Vice-President Kamala Harris wins in November, it will likely be on the strength of the pro-choice vote, which has been turning out strongly in recent elections. Her statements and choices on the campaign trail couldn’t stand in starker relief against those of Donald Trump and his running mate, J. D. Vance, who recently called for defunding Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, Harris “is the first sitting Vice-President or President to come to a Planned Parenthood health center, to come to an abort...
Oct 22, 2024•21 min•Ep 971•Transcript available on Metacast Since the blockbuster success of his musical “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda has been busy: acting, directing, and composing for Disney projects, including the upcoming movie “Mufasa: The Lion King.” But his new project is more personal, and a throwback in the best sense. Working with the playwright Eisa Davis, he has reimagined a movie from his childhood as a concept album. “The Warriors” is a cult classic released in 1979. “The Warriors are a gang from Coney Island, and they have to fight their...
Oct 18, 2024•29 min•Ep 970•Transcript available on Metacast Bon Iver is the alias of Justin Vernon, who holds an unusual place in music as both a singer-songwriter in an acoustic idiom and a collaborator with the biggest stars in pop, including Taylor Swift, Charli XCX, and Kanye West. Bon Iver’s new three-song EP, titled “SABLE,” is his first record of his own songs in more than five years. Vernon rarely gives interviews, so this is an extended version of his conversation with the staff writer Amanda Petrusich . They touched on the meaning of “sable,” a...
Oct 16, 2024•46 min•Ep 969•Transcript available on Metacast Since July 21st, when Joe Biden endorsed her in the Presidential race, all eyes have been on Vice-President Kamala Harris. The New Yorker ’s Evan Osnos has been reporting on Harris for months, speaking with dozens of people close to her from her childhood to her days as a California prosecutor, right up to this lightning-round campaign for the Presidency. “What’s interesting is that some of those people . . . were asking her, ‘Do you think there should be a process? Some town halls or convention...
Oct 11, 2024•27 min•Ep 968•Transcript available on Metacast Between book bans, the movement for parental rights, the fight over cellphones, and budgets being slashed, life in a public school is stressful—and a fertile ground for comedy. Brian Jordan Alvarez created and stars in “English Teacher,” débuting this season on FX. Alvarez has been an actor for many years, with a role on the reboot of “Will & Grace,” among many others, but he burst into viral fame on TikTok with a goofy song about the virtues of sitting, sung in a strange accent. Suddenly everyb...
Oct 08, 2024•19 min•Ep 967•Transcript available on Metacast Long before Donald Trump got serious about politics, Newt Gingrich saw himself as the revolutionary in Washington, introducing a combative style of party politics that helped his party become a dominating force in Congress. Setting the template for Trump, Gingrich described Democrats not as an opposing team with whom to make alliances but as an alien force—a “cultural élite”—out to destroy America. Gingrich has written no less than five admiring books about Trump, and he was involved with pushin...
Oct 04, 2024•31 min•Ep 966•Transcript available on Metacast In Michigan, many voters—particularly Arab American and Muslim voters—remain deeply upset by the Biden Administration’s support for the Israeli military, in the face of the enormous death toll in Gaza. In her Presidential campaign, Kamala Harris has not articulated any major shift in policy. Earlier in the year, during the primary elections, activists urged Democrats to check the box for “Uncommitted,” as a rebuke to Biden. But now, just weeks away from the general election, these disaffected De...
Oct 01, 2024•19 min•Ep 965•Transcript available on Metacast Actors and comedians have usually played Donald Trump as larger than life, almost as a cartoon. In the new film “The Apprentice,” Sebastian Stan doesn’t play for laughs. He stars as a very young Trump falling under the sway of Roy Cohn (played by Jeremy Strong)— the notorious, amoral lawyer and fixer. “Cohn took Donald Trump under his wing when Donald was a nobody from the outer boroughs,” the film’s writer and executive producer Gabriel Sherman tells David Remnick. He “taught him the dark arts ...
Sep 27, 2024•32 min•Ep 964•Transcript available on Metacast Since the war in Ukraine began, the historian Timothy Snyder has made several trips to Ukraine, and it was there that he wrote parts of his newest book, “On Freedom.” The author of “Bloodlands” and “On Tyranny,” Snyder spoke in Ukrainian with soldiers, farmers, journalists, and politicians, including President Volodymyr Zelensky. He talks with David Remnick about the Ukrainian conviction that they can win the war, and the historical trends that support that conviction. But the thrust of Snyder’s...
Sep 24, 2024•21 min•Ep 963•Transcript available on Metacast The political strategist Sarah Longwell has dedicated the last seven years to understanding why so many Republicans find Donald Trump irresistible, and how they might be persuaded to vote for someone else. Longwell is a lifelong Republican who became a leader of the Never Trump wing of the G.O.P., and her communications firm, Longwell Partners, has been running weekly focus groups including swing-state voters, undecided voters, and discontented Trump supporters. These are the people who might de...
Sep 20, 2024•29 min•Ep 962•Transcript available on Metacast Lake Street Dive recorded their first album with money that their bassist won in a songwriting contest. They built a following the old-fashioned way, touring small venues for years and building a loyal following of fans—including David Remnick—who thought of them as an under-the-radar secret. Almost twenty years later, the band finds themselves onstage at Madison Square Garden. “My main inspiration for playing M.S.G. is Billy Joel,” the bassist Bridget Kearney said. “It feels like the club when ...
Sep 17, 2024•27 min•Ep 961•Transcript available on Metacast In 2024, all eyes are on Pennsylvania: its nineteen electoral votes make it the largest swing state, and it’s considered a critical battleground for either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris to win the White House. For many years, Pennsylvania trended slightly blue, but the state has become deeply purple—with a divided state House and a series of razor-thin margins in general elections. One notable exception to this was the 2022 Pennsylvania governor’s race. The Democrat Josh Shapiro won by almost fi...
Sep 13, 2024•23 min•Ep 960•Transcript available on Metacast Patti LuPone has been a mainstay on Broadway for half a century. She’s appeared in some 30 Broadway productions and has won three Tony Awards for her roles in “Evita,” “Gypsy,” and “Company.” And somehow, LuPone’s career seems to be picking up steam in its sixth decade. Now LuPone is returning to Broadway in “The Roommate,” a play she’s starring in alongside Mia Farrow. At the same time, she is débuting in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing a witch in the miniseries “Agatha All Along.” The s...
Sep 10, 2024•26 min•Ep 959•Transcript available on Metacast Of the sixty-five lawsuits that Donald Trump’s team filed in the 2020 election, Democrats won sixty-four—with the attorney Marc Elias spearheading the majority. Elias was so successful that Steve Bannon speaks of him with admiration. Now Marc Elias is working for Vice-President Kamala Harris’s campaign, and, despite his past victories, Elias says that 2024 is keeping him up at night. The bizarre antics and conspiracy theories of Rudy Giuliani are a thing of the past, Elias tells David Remnick: “...
Sep 06, 2024•24 min•Ep 958•Transcript available on Metacast “I like to look at places that people aren’t seeing,” says Ian Frazier , the author of “Great Plains” and “Travels in Siberia,” and the new “ Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York’s Greatest Borough .” “Not only do people not know about” the Bronx, “but what they know about it is wrong.” The book, which was excerpted recently in The New Yorker , came out of fifteen years’ worth of long walks through the city streets, and on a hot morning recently, he invited a colleague, Zach Helfand , ...
Sep 03, 2024•25 min•Ep 957•Transcript available on Metacast In fiction and nonfiction, the author Danzy Senna focusses on the experience of being biracial in a nation long obsessed with color lines. Now that Kamala Harris is the Democratic candidate for President, some of Senna’s concerns have come to the fore in political life. Donald Trump attacked Harris as a kind of race manipulator, implying that she had been Indian American before becoming Black for strategic purposes. The claim was bizarre and false, but Senna feels that it reflected a mind-set in...
Aug 30, 2024•26 min•Ep 956•Transcript available on Metacast In honor of what is for many people the final days of summer, the New Yorker Radio Hour team presents a conversation that may inspire your end-of-summer reading list: David Remnick talks to Hernan Diaz about his book, Trust , which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2023. The novel’s plot focuses on the daughter of eccentric aristocrats after she marries a Wall Street tycoon of dubious ethics during the Roaring Twenties. The novel is told by four people in four different formats, which offer conflicting ac...
Aug 27, 2024•20 min•Ep 955•Transcript available on Metacast This program is drawn from a new season of the award-winning investigative podcast In the Dark . On a November day in 2005, in the city of Haditha, Iraq, something terrible happened. “Depending on whose story you believed, the killings were a war crime, a murder,” the lead reporter Madeleine Baran says. “Or they were a legitimate combat action and the victims were collateral damage. Or the killings were a tragic mistake, unintentional—sad, but not criminal. Basically, the only thing that everyon...
Aug 23, 2024•44 min•Ep 953•Transcript available on Metacast 
