Pop Culture Happy Hour

Pop Culture Happy Hour

Get obsessed with us. Four 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

How To Get To Heaven From Belfast

February 17, 2026 • 15 mins
Netflix’s How To Get To Heaven From Belfast is the new series from the creator of the beloved show Derry Girls. It follows three very messy longtime friends working together to solve a mystery from their youth. Part mystery and part comedy, it’s a darkly funny adventure through Ireland and elsewhere, as they elude various pursuers, reopen old wounds, and try to find answers about what has happened to a friend they lost along the wa...
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Pillion

February 16, 2026 • 17 mins
In Pillion, a.k.a. the “gay BDSM biker movie,” a meek young man named Colin (Harry Melling) meets a handsome, broody biker played by Alexander Skarsgård who brings out his submissive side. They enter into a sub/dom relationship, but the biker remains so mysterious and withholding that Colin starts to want more – endangering the bond the two men share. 

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“Wuthering Heights” and What’s Making Us Happy

February 13, 2026 • 27 mins
In the new film “Wuthering Heights,” Margot Robbie stars as headstrong and horny Cathy, and Jacob Elordi as brooding and horny Heathcliff. Their love on the wild windswept moors is passionate, doomed and pretty bonkers. From writer and director Emerald Fennell, the film has love, lust, hatred, revenge, and lots of lusty looks in the soaking rain.


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Best Book to Movie Adaptations

February 12, 2026 • 28 mins
What’s your favorite movie that started life as a book? And what makes for a great book to film adaptation, anyway? We’ve got some examples of beloved books that made the transition to the big screen, and we’re prepared to discuss and debate why each of them works – and why we believe they’re the best of all time. We talk about: Blade Runner, Little Women, Nickel Boys, and Starship Troopers.

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The Pop Culture Hill I’ll Die On

February 10, 2026 • 24 mins
We've all got that one argument we're always making: that non-negotiable stance, that immutable truth we're sticking to no matter what. Today, we're revisiting our conversation about the pop culture hills we'll die on. We discuss: Jacob Elordi, Timothée Chalamet, boss battles in video games, Bryan Adams, and attending concerts.

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Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime Show

February 9, 2026 • 24 mins
At the Super Bowl halftime show, Bad Bunny put on an endlessly rewatchable performance. It featured Lady Gaga, Ricky Martin, and a real wedding. But it didn’t shy away from this political moment, and Bad Bunny’s place in the culture wars.

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Charli xcx, The Moment and What’s Making Us Happy

February 6, 2026 • 25 mins
Remember Brat Summer? Charli xcx has turned the aftermath of her mainstream success into a movie called The Moment. It’s a hyperpop faux documentary commenting upon the intense response to her album, Brat, and Charli’s fickle relationship with stardom. Can Charli keep the Brat momentum going? Does she even want to? The film also features Alexander Skarsgård, Hailey Benton Gates, and Kylie Jenner.

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Wonder Man

February 4, 2026 • 18 mins
Marvel’s new Disney+ series Wonder Man is a sensible buddy comedy where Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays a down-on-his-luck actor (with incredible superpowers) trying to make it in Hollywood, and Ben Kingsley plays his new friend with a dark past. Safe to say it’s not what most Marvel fans are expecting – and that’s a good thing.

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2026 Sundance Film Festival: Best Movies

February 3, 2026 • 16 mins

We watched a ton of movies and we’re recommending some of the best things we saw at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. This includes a thrilling adventure starring Ethan Hawke, a quiet romance with Chris Pine, and quite possibly the best documentary we’ll see all year.
For a complete list of the movies we loved at Sundance, Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd

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2026 Grammys Recap

February 2, 2026 • 27 mins
This year’s Grammy Awards featured historic wins for Bad Bunny and Kendrick Lamar, performances from Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, and occasional chaos. And it was a night of speeches that reflected this moment in America.


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Send Help and What’s Making Us Happy

January 30, 2026 • 22 mins
In the new comic horror film Send Help, Rachel McAdams finds out the answer to the age-old hypothetical, “what if you were stranded on a desert island?” — except she’s stuck there with her terrible boss (Dylan O’Brien). The dynamic between them shifts and shifts again as they try to survive long enough to be rescued.

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Star Trek: Starfleet Academy

January 29, 2026 • 21 mins
Star Trek fans are finally getting something they’ve wanted for a long time, and it doesn’t disappoint. The new series Star Trek: Starfleet Academy takes place at the college attended by kids who want to become officers in Starfleet. It stars Holly Hunter as the school’s chancellor, Paul Giamatti as a recurring bad guy, and a roster of hot young cadets who have classes to attend and lessons to learn.


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The Beauty

January 27, 2026 • 20 mins
The Beauty stars familiar faces from the Ryan Murphy universe, including Evan Peters, as well as new collaborators like Ashton Kutcher. In the show, a genetic biotech serum has been engineered to transform people into ridiculously good-looking supermodels. But there’s at least one problem: Eventually, those supermodels are dying suddenly, horrifically and spectacularly. Is it astute commentary, crass exploitation, or maybe a bit of...
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A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

January 26, 2026 • 19 mins
The HBO series A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms may be set in the same fantasy world as Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, but it’s a small, grounded story – a kind of medieval buddy comedy. It follows a sweet but dim knight (Peter Claffey) and his wise-beyond-his-years young squire (Dexter Sol Ansell) trying to make their way in a tough world. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is based on a series of novellas by George R.R. Marti...
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One Battle After Another and What’s Making Us Happy

January 23, 2026 • 24 mins
One Battle After Another earned 13 Oscar nominations - including best picture, best director and a lead actor nomination for Leonardo DiCaprio. In the action-thriller, DiCaprio plays a washed up ex-revolutionary searching for his missing daughter while raging against the machine. In this case, the machine is unabashedly racist, xenophobic, and corrupt. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the ensemble also includes Sean Penn, Teyana T...
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2026 Oscar Nominations

January 22, 2026 • 19 mins
This year’s Oscars nominations are here, and we’re unpacking record-breaking nominations for Sinners, plus nominations for One Battle After Another and Hamnet. And as always, there’s an eclectic mix of heavy favorites, left-field surprises, and the dreaded snubs. We give a broad sense of this year’s major storylines, while also lamenting a few decisions we found baffling.

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Watch This: It Was Just An Accident

January 21, 2026 • 19 mins
The Iranian film It Was Just an Accident enters Oscars season with the wind at its back. It won the top prize at Cannes, a raft of other awards and has landed on a lot of top ten lists. The movie bears out those accolades. Directed by Jafar Panahi, it’s a tense, volatile, often darkly funny movie about what happens when a former political prisoner runs into a man he’s almost convinced is the one who tortured him and other prisoners...
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The Rip

January 20, 2026 • 16 mins
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck share the screen again in new Netflix film, The Rip. Similar to the pulpy, mid-budget cop movies we used to get, The Rip is about a team of cops who are trying to take a huge stash of money from a drug cartel. But that work is not only dangerous, but also complicated as they encounter more money than they expected. The cast also includes Steven Yeun, Teyana Taylor, and Kyle Chandler.

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28 Years Later: The Bone Temple and What’s Making Us Happy

January 16, 2026 • 21 mins
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple picks up where 28 Years Later left off – in a world of zombie-like infecteds and vigilantes that turn out to be a murderous cult. Ralph Fiennes returns as Dr. Kelson, who makes an unlikely friend in his medical refuge slash memorial site slash bone temple.

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Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials

January 15, 2026 • 17 mins
The new Netflix series Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials centers on lesser known mystery solving protagonist Lady Eileen Brent (Mia McKenna-Bruce). It’s got all the familiar cozy mystery trappings like a manor house, snobby suspects, stiff upper lips and lots of secrets. Based on an early Christie novel, the show also features Martin Freeman and Helena Bonham-Carter.

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