A Guide to 2022’s Most Promising TV
Here are the shows to watch this year, whether you’re looking for something new or hoping to catch up on an old favorite.
Frontiers of Sports
Where Did ‘Synchronized Swimming’ Go?
More than 30 years after its Olympic debut, the sport was rebranded as “artistic swimming”—a controversial move that athletes fear could backfire.
An Electrifying Adaptation of a Murakami Short Story
In Drive My Car, a vehicle becomes a meditative space for confessions, regrets, and revelations.
15 Books You Won’t Regret Re-reading
Years after these titles were popular, they’re still worth picking up.
The Bloody, Brutal Business of Being a Teenage Girl
Showtime’s Yellowjackets is an addictive and perceptive coming-of-age story cloaked in psychological horror.
‘The Timeline You’re All Living in Is About to Collapse’
SNL’s inaugural episode of 2022 turned to dark, and often awkward, absurdity to explain our exasperating moment.
The Year of Practical Thinking
After so much uncertainty and loss, many Americans are abandoning the unbridled optimism of a new year and adopting a more pragmatic outlook.
The TV Show for the Age of Conspiracism
Yellowjackets, a feminist update of Lord of the Flies, has created a rich world where everyone—and everything—is a suspect.
The Newest Scream Movie Skewers Fandom Itself
The latest film in the famously self-aware franchise takes aim at Hollywood, legacy sequels, and the horror genre.
Why Are People So Mad About Don’t Look Up?
Climate change is a tough subject for any film, let alone a satire.
For Women, Is Exercise Power?
In Let’s Get Physical, Danielle Friedman traces the fascinating, loaded history of female fitness.
Enter the Nightmarish World of Joel Coen’s Macbeth
Denzel Washington leads a magnificent ensemble in this stark, minimalist adaptation of a Shakespearean tragedy.
Welcome to Purgatory. The Weeknd Will Be Your DJ.
His new album makes the road to the afterlife sound like the ’80s, in the best way possible.
Bob Saget Was Entertainment’s Consummate Father Figure
The late actor and comedian’s gift was his fluency in dad jokes and dirty humor alike.
The Art Movement That Embraced the Monstrous
Since its formation in the 1920s, surrealism has produced works that are unnerving, disturbing—and perversely appealing as well.
Survivor Is Deceptive. That’s What Makes It So Real.
The contestants on the show are always performing. But, then again, so are we.
Sidney Poitier Gave More Than He Was Given
Though the late actor was constrained by Hollywood’s disinterest in Black complexity, he fought to inject doses of reality into each of his performances.
George Clooney’s Unfulfilled Promise
The director’s latest movie, The Tender Bar, captures a problem with his brand of filmmaking.
The ‘Meta-emptiness’ of Emily in Paris
Can the joyfully escapist Netflix show also argue for the importance of escapism?
Why Star Wars Keeps Telling the Same Stories
The Book of Boba Fett turns one of the most mysterious characters in the galaxy into a classic savior figure, to watchable but uninspiring effect.
The Movie That Understands the Secret Shame of Motherhood
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s adaptation of The Lost Daughter challenges Hollywood’s ideas about what women owe to their children—and to themselves.
Eight Ghost Stories in Which the Dead Won’t Go Quietly
Literature has a long tradition of using the genre to address unsettled pasts and forgotten traumas.