World
The Heartrending Movies of John Cazale
With his sallow face and boulder-like forehead, John Cazale was one of the indelible character actors of the nineteen-seventies, but his career was tragically brief. He appeared in only...
“Ballerina” Leaps into John Wick’s Bloody World
It’s been instructive to see “Ballerina,” which opens this week, so soon after the new “Mission: Impossible” installment. In the latter, it’s hard to top Tom Cruise’s intrepid stunt...
How Did New Zealand Turn on Jacinda Ardern?
In 2022, Jacinda Ardern, the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, was approached by a stranger in an airport bathroom. Ardern was alone, washing her hands, when a middle-aged...
Why Did New Zealand Turn on Jacinda Ardern?
In 2022, Jacinda Ardern, the then Prime Minister of New Zealand, was approached by a stranger in an airport bathroom. Ardern was alone, washing her hands, when a middle-aged...
Sarah Ruhl’s Guides in Life and Art
In the playwright Sarah Ruhl’s new book, “Lessons from My Teachers,” she writes of a period in her life when she—by then a celebrated dramatist, a parent, and a...
Alison Bechdel and the Search for the Beginner’s Mind
One weekend in 1986, on a jaunt in a rented cabin with her soon-to-be-ex-lover, Alison Bechdel, a virtually unknown cartoonist in her twenties living in the Twin Cities, had...
What Isaac Asimov Reveals About Living with A.I.
For this week’s Open Questions column, Cal Newport is filling in for Joshua Rothman.In the spring of 1940, Isaac Asimov, who had just turned twenty, published a short story...
What We Get Wrong About Violent Crime
Late on a Sunday night in June of 2023, a woman named Carlishia Hood and her fourteen-year-old son, an honor student, pulled into Maxwell Street Express, a fast-food joint...
David Hockney’s “Going Up Garrowby Hill”
There are many ways to celebrate spring, but few contemporary artists have devoted more attention to the topic than David Hockney. The cover of the June 9, 2025, issue...
In Praise of Jane Austen’s Least Beloved Novel
“Northanger Abbey” is the least beloved of Jane Austen’s six novels. It also appears frequently in university-level literature classes. These two things are related.Completed largely in 1798 and 1799,...
