Sophie Gilbert
Before joining The Atlantic in 2014, she was the arts editor at Washingtonian, where she won three Society of Professional Journalists awards for arts reporting and criticism. She has previously written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and The Brooklyn Rail.
How to Tell the Story of a Cult
Two docuseries about NXIVM present a question: Are the people who have escaped a controlling organization the most reliable sources on what happened to them?
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Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic; Netflix; The Bismarck … Stubborn, Determined, and Dying
In the Netflix film The Wonder, a “fasting girl” becomes a holy spectacle of self-annihilation.
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HBO; Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic The Multiple Stories of NXIVM
The new season of the HBO docuseries The Vow shows how dangerous the human desire for narrative can be.
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FX Whose Midlife Crisis Is It, Anyway?
In the new FX/Hulu show Fleishman Is in Trouble, the story of a divorce isn’t as straightforward as it seems.
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Dignity Productions / Amazon Studio The Exquisite Pain of Monogamous Life
In the new Prime Video show Mammals, infidelity is a philosophical conundrum as much as a practical one.
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The Atlantic; Getty Jamie Oliver vs. Inflation
In times of hardship, cooking shows can make the case that recipes are sources of not just meals, but also resilience.
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Erik Carter / The Atlantic; AMC TV’s Last Truly Unbothered Show
Behind the scenes with Cate Blanchett and Fred Armisen on an esoteric labor of love
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Kim Kielhofner How Did Healing Ourselves Get So Exhausting?
Wellness has become yet another obligation to fit into our schedules.
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FX; The Atlantic The Best Shows of 2022 Have Something in Common
Claustrophobes beware.
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CBS / Getty No One Performed Britishness Better Than Her Majesty
She understood intuitively what an extraordinary force cultural power could be.
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Apple TV+; Taro Yamasaki / FX; Joanne Imperio … The Wrath of a Woman Without Any Options
Television this summer has been preoccupied with a timely question: How far will women go when systems fail them?
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Ollie Upton / HBO The Glaring Flaw at the Heart of House of the Dragon
In the lavish Game of Thrones prequel, no one is immune to the toxic dynamics of the Targaryen family.
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FPG / Getty; Joanne Imperio / The Atlantic How Should Feminists Have Sex Now?
A new memoir on the unfinished sexual revolution explores the difficulty of enacting one’s political beliefs in intimate spaces.
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Illustration by Nícolas Ortega. Source: Jean Honoré Fragonard. Don’t Call Them Trash
Romance novels celebrate female pleasure and aspiration.
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Astrid Stawiarz / Getty; New York Daily News … Why Did We Buy What Victoria’s Secret Was Selling?
The brand sold itself using an upside-down logic: that women need to suffer to be deemed desirable.
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Frank Ockenfels / FX TV’s Best New Show Is a Study of Masculinity in Crisis
The new FX/Hulu series The Bear brilliantly analyzes the ways in which male-dominated environments are set up to fail.
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Netflix Stranger Things Isn’t TV. It’s Something Else.
The escapist sweep of the Netflix show’s story keeps clashing with its winking plunder of archival pop culture.
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HBO What a Story of 1970s Abortion Activism Can Teach Us Today
For the Jane Collective, organizing safe abortions in pre-Roe America didn’t just serve people in need—it also protected a more hopeful future.
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Anika Molnar / Sister Pictures / BBC / … What This Is Going to Hurt Leaves Out
And what the AMC black comedy about a British obstetrician illuminates about women’s health
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Simon Annand; The Atlantic The Problem of English Identity
And the play that lays bare Britain’s constructed myths
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Universal / Everett; The Atlantic The Review: Knocked Up
Sophie Gilbert, Megan Garber, and Hannah Giorgis discuss Hollywood and the way it depicts abortion (or doesn’t).
