Episodes
Rob Reiner, the classic film director, and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were killed on Sunday at their home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. On Tuesday, prosecutors charged the couple’s son, Nick, with first-degree murder.Julia Jacobs, an arts and culture reporter for The New York Times, explains what we have learned about the deaths, and Wesley Morris, a critic at The Times, discusses why many of Rob Reiner’s films are so beloved.Guest:Julia Jacobs, who reports on culture and the arts for The New York Times.Wesley Morris, a critic at The New York Times who writes about art...
Warning: This episode contains strong language.Palantir, a data analysis and technology company, has secured federal contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars during President Trump’s second presidency, including to develop software to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement deport people.Michael Steinberger, who spent six years interviewing Palantir’s chief executive, Alex Karp, for the book “The Philosopher in the Valley,” explains how Mr. Karp went from a self-described lifelong Democrat to a champion of Mr. Trump, and the impact this transformation could have on American democrac...
A New York Times review of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s actions on immigration showed that decisions he and his closest advisers made created an opening for a more aggressive Trump administration agenda.Christopher Flavelle, who interviewed more than 30 former Biden administration officials who worked on immigration and border policy, explains how Mr. Biden fumbled the immigration issue, and what the Democratic Party can learn from his missteps.Guest: Christopher Flavelle, a reporter for The New York Times.Background reading: How Mr. Biden ignored warnings and lost Americans’ faith in im...
As 2025 comes to an end, The Sunday Special is looking back on the year in culture.This week, we’re listening to the songs and albums that defined the year, for better or worse. Gilbert Cruz is joined by Caryn Ganz and Lindsay Zoladz from The Times’s pop music desk to discuss some of the biggest and best releases of 2025.Albums and songs mentioned in this episode:Bad Bunny, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos”Lady Gaga, “Mayhem”Justin Bieber, “Daisies”Chappell Roan, “The Giver” and “The Subway”Sabrina Carpenter, “Manchild”Doechii, “Alligator Bites Never Heal”Taylor Swift, “The Life of a Showgirl”Morgan W...
The current and former lawmakers get candid about bipartisan politics, party leadership and the state of the Senate.Thoughts? Email us at theinterview@nytimes.comWatch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@TheInterviewPodcastFor transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/theinterview
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The first week of December at The New York Times is known as “Cookie Week.” Every day, for seven days, our cooking team highlights a new holiday cookie recipe. This year’s batch features flavors that aren’t necessarily traditional holiday ones — or even, for that matter, flavors. Instead, they draw inspiration from family night at the movies, drinks like Vietnamese Coffee, and perhaps most surprisingly, an Italian deli meat.In this edition of the Sunday Special, Gilbert Cruz talks with Melissa Clark and Vaughn Vreeland from New York Times Cooking about this year’s cookies, and they answer q...
The holiday season is here, which means it’s the time to think of great gifts for everyone on your list. While it can feel like a daunting task to choose thoughtful, personalized presents, we’ve got a fix for you: books.On this edition of The Sunday Special, Gilbert is joined by Joumana Khatib and Sadie Stein, editors at the Book Review, for a conversation about the best books to give your family and friends. Joumana and Sadie will share what excited them most this year and also provide recommendations for giftees in very specific categories.Books mentioned in this episode:“The Colony,” Ann...
“Wicked” was one of the biggest movies of 2024. It was culturally ubiquitous, a box office smash and an Oscar nominee for Best Picture. Now, a year later, “Wicked: For Good” arrives in theaters to finish the tale of the complicated friendship between Glinda the Good Witch and Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West. Can “Wicked: For Good” be the sensation that its predecessor was? Will it inject new life into a movie business that has suffered a historically bad business year? Will it satisfy the legions of “Wicked” fans who have been waiting to see their favorite musical brought to the big s...
There was once a time when documentaries could be found only on public television or in art-house cinemas. But today, documentaries are more popular and accessible than ever, with streaming services serving up true crime, celebrity documentaries, music documentaries and so much more.On today’s Sunday Special, Gilbert is joined by The New York Times’s chief television critic, James Poniewozik, and Alissa Wilkinson, a Times film critic, to talk about the documentaries that are worth your viewing time. On Today’s Episode:James Poniewozik is the chief TV critic for The Times.Alissa Wilkinson is...
This year has been a banner year for video games, with an abundance of surprise releases and unexpected hits.On this week’s Sunday Special, Gilbert Cruz talks with two fellow gamers — Zachary Small, a culture reporter, and Jason Bailey, an editor on The Times’s culture desk — about the state of the industry, the biggest releases and the games they loved playing in 2025. They also share their predictions for Game of the Year.On Today’s EpisodeZachary Small is a culture reporter for The Times.Jason M. Bailey is an editor on the culture desk, and oversees The Times’s video game coverage.
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The only thing Gilbert Cruz loves more than celebrating Halloween is watching scary movies. And between the classic horror franchises that span decades and the prestige original films of the current moment, he has seen hundreds of them. On today’s episode, Gilbert puts his knowledge to use in conversation with his fellow horror aficionados Jason Zinoman and Erik Piepenburg. They comb through a century of spooks, frights and screams to crown the Top 10 franchises in cinema history. Horror franchises discussed on this episode:“A Nightmare on Elm Street”“A Quiet Place”“Alien”“The Amityville Ho...
On Friday, “Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere” will be released in theaters. Rather than chronicling Bruce’s entire life, the film focuses on the making of his stripped-down 1982 album “Nebraska” and on his concurrent mental health struggles.This movie is the latest in a long history of musician biopics featuring stars like Bob Dylan, Loretta Lynn, Eminem and Elvis Presley. Hollywood clearly loves telling the stories of influential artists.In this episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Lindsay Zoladz, a pop music critic for The Times, and Joe Coscarelli, a Times culture reporter, about the tro...
Broadway represents some of the best and most exciting of what American theater has to offer. But for many people, it’s inaccessible. Whether because of geography, cost or other considerations, most people will never sit in a Broadway theater and experience a play or a musical in person.For years, cast recordings have offered a way to experience Broadway shows at a remove. And now, in the streaming era, some Broadway shows are making themselves available to be watched remotely, in movie theaters and on television. Distance and expense aren’t the impediments they once were to culture lovers ...
Amusement parks are enduring vacation destinations for American families. The rides, the long lines for rides, the concessions, the long lines for concessions — these are practically familial rites of passage. Theme parks are also enormous moneymakers, with industry leaders such as Disney and Universal earning billions of dollars each year from their parks.In this episode, Gilbert Cruz chats with Brooks Barnes, who writes about show business (including theme parks), and Mekado Murphy, a film editor and thrill-seeker who reports on roller coasters. They talk about the state of the contempora...
This month kicked off the big four fashion weeks: New York, London, Milan and Paris. Each year, designers, brands, influencers and celebrities flock to these events to see and be seen.On today’s episode, Gilbert sits down with Stella Bugbee and Jacob Gallagher, two of The Times’s foremost style experts and veterans of the fashion week circuit, to discuss clothes. They talk about what fashion week means in the frenetic fashion ecosystem of 2025, and they answer some listener questions about how to cultivate a personal style. On Today’s Episode:Stella Bugbee, the Styles editor for The New Yor...
This month, The Times released a list of the 50 best restaurants in America. The Food desk’s reporters, critics and editors crisscrossed the country from Portland, Ore., to Deer Isle, Maine, to scout places formal and casual, big and small, experimental and classic. Their survey is an evocation of what it’s like to dine out, right now, in America.On today’s episode, Gilbert sits down with the Food reporters Priya Krishna and Brett Anderson, two contributors to the list, for a veritable feast of dining wisdom. They discuss what makes a restaurant worthy of the 50 best list, how they go about...
The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony is tonight, honoring the best television shows released between June 2024 and May 2025. But before the festivities begin, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, would like to have a TV celebration of his own.On today’s episode, he gathers Jason Zinoman, a critic at large for The Times, and Alexis Soloski, a culture reporter for The Times, to “channel surf” through some of their favorite shows of the past year.On Today’s Episode:Jason Zinoman, a critic at large for The New York Times who writes a column about comedy.Alexis Soloski,...
As kids across America head back to school, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, is thinking about the books he read when he was in school.On today’s Sunday Special, Gilbert talks with the Book Review editor Sadie Stein and the author Louis Sachar (“Wayside School” series, “Holes”) about the books they read when they were students, and ways to encourage young readers today to keep reading.Additional reading10 Books for Kids Starting Preschool12 Books for Kids Starting Kindergarten15 Books for Kids Starting Middle SchoolFor a future Sunday Special, ask us your personal...
Welcome to the Sunday Special, running now through the end of the year. Every Sunday, Gilbert Cruz, the editor of The New York Times Book Review, will talk with a rotating cast of Times critics and culture and lifestyle reporters about “the fun stuff”— pop culture, movies, TV, music, fashion and more.On today’s inaugural episode, Gilbert sits down with Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic at The Times, and Madison Malone Kircher, an internet reporter at The Times, to recap their cultural highs and lows of this summer.Photo: Stephane Mahe / Reuters
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Rachel Abrams and Natalie Kitroeff officially join Michael Barbaro as co-hosts of the show. Welcome to the next chapter.
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
When Taffy Brodesser-Akner became a writer, Mr. Lindenblatt, the father of one of her oldest friends, began asking to tell his story of survival during the Holocaust in one of the magazines or newspapers she wrote for. He took pride in telling his story, in making sure he fulfilled what he felt was the obligation of all Holocaust survivors, which was to remind the world what had happened to the Jews.His daughter Ilana knew it was a long shot but felt obligated to pass on the request — it was her father, after all. Taffy declined because after a life hearing about the Holocaust, she said, sh...
Sometime in the 1850s or ’60s, at a terrible moment in U.S. history, a strange man seemed to sprout, out of nowhere, into the rocky landscape between New York City and Hartford, Conn. The word “strange” hardly captures his strangeness. He was rough and hairy, and he wandered around on back roads, sleeping in caves. Above all, he refused to explain himself. As one newspaper put it: “He is a mystery, and a very greasy and ill-odored one.” Other papers referred to him as “the animal” or (just throwing up their hands) “this uncouth and unkempt ‘What is it?’”But the strangest thing about the str...
Today, millions of Americans will have the opportunity to see a rare total solar eclipse.Fred Espenak, a retired astrophysicist known as Mr. Eclipse, was so blown away by an eclipse he saw as a teenager that he dedicated his life to traveling the world and seeing as many as he could.Mr. Espenak discusses the eclipses that have punctuated and defined the most important moments in his life, and explains why these celestial phenomena are such a wonder to experience.Guest: Fred Espenak, a.k.a. “Mr. Eclipse,” a former NASA astrophysicist and lifelong eclipse chaser.Background reading: A total so...
Jeanna Smialek, who covers the U.S. economy for The Times, will be 33 in a few weeks; she is part of a cohort born in 1990 and 1991 that makes up the peak of America’s population.At every life stage, that microgeneration has stretched a system that was often too small to accommodate it, leaving its members — so-called peak millennials — with outsize economic power but also a fight to get ahead.Guest: Jeanna Smialek, a U.S. economy correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: When millennials gripe that they get blamed for everything, the accusers might actually be onto something...
Fifty years ago, eight Americans set off for South America to climb Aconcagua, one of the world’s mightiest mountains. Things quickly went wrong. Two climbers died. Their bodies were left behind.Here is what was certain: A woman from Denver, maybe the most accomplished climber in the group, had last been seen alive on the glacier. A man from Texas, part of the recent Apollo missions to the moon, lay frozen nearby.There were contradictory statements from survivors and a hasty departure. There was a judge who demanded an investigation into possible foul play. There were three years of summit-...
It was meant to mark the start of their lives out of college, but the adventure quickly turned into a nightmare. Beginning with what seemed to be a lucky whale sighting, three friends set out on a sea-kayaking trip through Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska, watching out for bears, and having a good time, when tragedy struck.In recounting the days preceding and following the accident, which seriously injured one of his friends, the Times journalist Jon Mooallem explains how he was forced to reckon with his fears. Detailing the incident’s surprising repercussions, he muses on the importance...
On June 24, 2015, Dawn Dorland, an essayist and aspiring novelist, did perhaps the kindest, most consequential thing she might ever do in her life. She donated one of her kidneys — and elected to do it in a slightly unusual and particularly altruistic way. As a so-called nondirected donation, her kidney was not meant for anyone in particular, but for a recipient who may otherwise have no other living donor.Several weeks before the surgery, Ms. Dorland decided to share her truth with others. She started a private Facebook group, inviting family and friends, including some fellow writers from...