Pop Culture Happy Hour
Get obsessed with us. Five days a week, Pop Culture Happy Hour serves you recommendations and commentary on the buzziest movies, TV, music, books, videogames and more. Join arts journalists Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson, and Aisha Harris - plus a rotating cast of guest pop culture aficionados. The Happy Hour team leaves room at the table for exploring a range of reactions and opinions on every bit of the pop universe. From lowbrow to highbrow to the stuff in between, they take it all with a shot of cheer. Make your happy hour even happier with Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus! Your subscription supports the podcast and unlocks a sponsor-free feed. Learn more at plus.npr.org/happyhour
Episodes
March 17, 2025 • 17 mins
In the new movie Opus, Ayo Edebiri plays a journalist who attends a press event at the compound of a reclusive pop star (John Malkovich) who'd been in hiding for decades. And then, things get weird and questions arise.
To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.
Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd...
To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.
Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd...
Mark as Played
March 14, 2025 • 15 mins
The cool, stylish new Steven Soderbergh film Black Bag is about a group of British spies who discover there's a traitor in their midst. It stars Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett. He's a lie detector expert; she's one of his chief suspects. The thing is: They're married.
Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adc...
Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adc...
Mark as Played
March 13, 2025 • 17 mins
You should watch the surreal new movie On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. It opens with a Zambian woman finding her uncle's body on the road. His death brings the family together from near and far, but also resurfaces old wounds — wounds the elders would much rather ignore. It's a powerful story about the silence that keeps families from breaking, but only in superficial ways, and with devastating consequences.
Learn more about sp...
Learn more about sp...
Mark as Played
March 12, 2025 • 21 mins
Lady Gaga has kept busy as a singer and actor, but it's been five years since she's released a full-blown pop album. Now, she's back with Mayhem, which has already produced three hits — including the chart-topping Bruno Mars duet "Die With A Smile." It's got bangers, it's got ballads, it's Lady Gaga through and through.
To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Cultur...
To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Cultur...
Mark as Played
March 10, 2025 • 20 mins
Live television is all about high risk, high reward. Whether it's musical performances, awards ceremonies, sports events, or comedy shows, there's an electric charge to watching something as it's happening. Today, we're debating the greatest moments of live television in pop culture - including a viral news blooper, John Travolta's "Adele Dazeem" flub at the Oscars, Kanye stating "George Bush doesn't care about Black people", and T...
Mark as Played
March 7, 2025 • 24 mins
Mickey 17 is writer-director Bong Joon Ho's follow-up to the Oscar-winning film Parasite. In the sharply satirical sci-fi film, Robert Pattinson is a manual laborer on a spaceship who just keeps dying. But then he gets reprinted – his memories get downloaded into a new body. What could go wrong? The film also stars Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, and Naomi Ackie.
Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/n...
Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/n...
Mark as Played
March 6, 2025 • 23 mins
What is it about a show that turns you into a bitter-ender, that keeps you dutifully watching every last episode, long after the train has jumped the tracks? Even when you know it's not good, but, for you anyway, it's just good enough to muddle through, all the way to the finale? Today, we're revisiting our conversation about terrible but bingeable TV shows
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adcho...
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adcho...
Mark as Played
March 5, 2025 • 18 mins
Perhaps you've heard that Saturday Night Live is celebrating its 50th anniversary — they've mentioned it once or twice. From Lazy Sunday to Domingo to a ton of iconic musical performances, SNL's had a long and fascinating relationship with music. Today, we're talking about some of our favorite SNL musical moments.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
NPR Privacy Policy
Mark as Played
March 3, 2025 • 25 mins
This year's Oscars was a big night for Sean Baker's Anora, including wins for best picture and director. The film's star Mikey Madison scored one of the night's few upsets, winning best actress. Adrien Brody, Kieran Culkin and Zoe Saldaña also took home acting wins. We also recap the hilarious bits from host Conan O'Brien, the long and discursive speeches, and show stopping musical numbers.
To access bonus episodes and spo...
To access bonus episodes and spo...
Mark as Played
February 28, 2025 • 51 mins
This year's Oscar nominees include Wicked, The Substance, Emilia Perez, and Conclave. And we watched all the nominated movies so you don't have to. We're making some bold predictions for who will win, plus vouching for who should take home those shiny gold statues.
To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.
Learn more...
To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy.
Learn more...
Mark as Played
February 27, 2025 • 19 mins
In Hulu's twisty drama series Paradise, Sterling K. Brown plays a Secret Service agent caught up in a web of intrigue after the president of the United States (James Marsden) is assassinated, with no suspect in sight. But at the end of the first episode, we learn this show is about way more than the murder of the head of state. Paradise was created by Dan Fogelman, who created the hit show This Is Us.
Learn more about spon...
Learn more about spon...
Mark as Played
February 25, 2025 • 14 mins
The Netflix series Zero Day begins with a terrifying moment in which everything in the United States goes briefly offline. Thousands of people die, and even after everything is restored, a widespread panic leads to a government investigation of who did it. With a cast headed by Robert De Niro and Angela Bassett, the show hopes to be a paranoid political thriller for our times.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podc...
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podc...
Mark as Played
February 24, 2025 • 22 mins
The standard line for awards season goes: "It's an honor just to be nominated." But when it comes to the Oscars, there's quite a long list of great performers who have never received this honor. Today, we're talking about some of our favorites who should have at least one Oscar on their mantle — including Pam Grier, John Goodman, Oscar Isaac, and Regina Hall.
Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyho...
Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyho...
Mark as Played
February 21, 2025 • 21 mins
In the new horror-comedy The Monkey, Theo James plays a pair of identical twin brothers who get saddled with a cursed wind-up toy monkey that causes people around them to die freakish, gory deaths. It's based on a Stephen King short story, and directed by Osgood Perkins, who made last year's Longlegs.
Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture
Learn more about sponsor message choic...
Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture
Learn more about sponsor message choic...
Mark as Played
February 19, 2025 • 17 mins
For more than 20 years on screen, Bridget Jones has been making her way through dating, working, having a baby, and even ending up in jail. Now in the fourth film, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy, Bridget (Renée Zellweger) is dealing with a whole new phase of life, and a new pair of possible love interests.
In the run-up to the Oscars, Pop Culture Happy Hour is watching all 10 best picture nominees – and you're invited to...
In the run-up to the Oscars, Pop Culture Happy Hour is watching all 10 best picture nominees – and you're invited to...
Mark as Played
February 18, 2025 • 22 mins
The Peacock reality show The Traitors continues to be a delightful mix of treachery, foolishness, and Alan Cumming's outfits. In the United States, the cast is made up exclusively of so-called celebrities. So today on the show we're fantasy casting who we think should be on the next season of The Traitors.
In the run-up to the Oscars, Pop Culture Happy Hour is watching all 10 best picture nominees – and you're invited to j...
In the run-up to the Oscars, Pop Culture Happy Hour is watching all 10 best picture nominees – and you're invited to j...
Mark as Played
February 17, 2025 • 18 mins
In the new movie Paddington In Peru, Paddington Bear and the Brown family fly across the globe, into the wilds of Peru, in search of Paddington's Aunt Lucy. Along the way, they meet a not-remotely-suspicious singing nun (Olivia Colman) and a boat captain (Antonio Banderas). The adventure that follows involves lost treasure and narrow escapes — and leads to new revelations about Paddington's past, and a new appreciation for what it ...
Mark as Played
February 14, 2025 • 26 mins
Anthony Mackie is the new Captain America, and he's finally got his own movie. In Captain America: Brave New World, Cap finds himself battling President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) who is hiding quite a few secrets.
In the run-up to the Oscars, Pop Culture Happy Hour is watching all 10 best picture nominees – and you're invited to join us! Sign up for the NPR Movie Club newsletter series and tell us what you thought of ...
In the run-up to the Oscars, Pop Culture Happy Hour is watching all 10 best picture nominees – and you're invited to join us! Sign up for the NPR Movie Club newsletter series and tell us what you thought of ...
Mark as Played
February 13, 2025 • 18 mins
The Substance is a bloody, campy, fiercely feminist body horror film. Demi Moore plays a TV aerobics instructor who learns of a mysterious drug that causes another younger, entirely separate version of herself (Margaret Qualley) to splurt out of her back and assume her consciousness. The movie has earned Moore her first Oscar nomination, and she's the frontrunner in this year's best actress race. So we thought it would be the perfe...
Mark as Played
February 11, 2025 • 22 mins
In the age of streaming content and "Prestige TV" it's easy to forget that old school TV networks are still out here, pumping out television shows. ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC have launched new series that adopt familiar formats – cop shows, lawyer shows, doctor shows – but each has something special to recommend it. So we're talking about St. Denis Medical, Doc, Doctor Odyssey, Matlock and High Potential.
Subscribe to Pop Cul...
Subscribe to Pop Cul...
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.