Critics at Large | The New Yorker

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

Critics at Large is a weekly culture podcast from The New Yorker. Every Thursday, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss current obsessions, classic texts they’re revisiting with fresh eyes, and trends that are emerging across books, television, film, and more. The show runs the gamut of the arts and pop culture, with lively, surprising conversations about everything from Salman Rushdie to “The Real Housewives.” Through rigorous analysis and behind-the-scenes insights into The New Yorker’s reporting, the magazine’s critics help listeners make sense of our moment—and how we got here.

Episodes

Critics at Large Live: “I Need a Critic!”

October 29, 2026 • 48 mins
On this episode of Critics at Large, recorded live at the twenty-seventh annual New Yorker Festival, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz bring their advice series to the stage for the first time. They advise on a range of topics, including films to introduce children to the magic of movies, art to rekindle a feminist spark, and whether trying to optimize one’s inner life can diminish the capacity for genuine ...
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“You Can See Everything” and the Nathan Fielder Effect

October 22, 2026 • 53 mins
Nathan Fielder’s onscreen persona—flat, literal-minded, and seemingly baffled by ordinary social behavior—has made him one of our most distinctive cultural figures. On his Comedy Central series “Nathan for You,” his approach collided with the eagerness of ordinary people to be agreeable, and on the HBO series “The Rehearsal,” it became a kind of social science, as Fielder staged elaborate s...
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“The Social Reckoning” Shows How It All Went Wrong

October 8, 2026 • 50 mins
In 2010, Time magazine’s Person of the Year was not a world leader or entertainment icon but Mark Zuckerberg, the twenty-six-year-old creator of Facebook. That same year, Zuckerberg got the Hollywood treatment in the bio-pic “The Social Network,” directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz revisit “The Social...
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Tom Cruise-a-Palooza

October 1, 2026 • 56 mins
Tom Cruise is often said to be the last of a dwindling breed: the true movie star. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the performances that have earned him that designation. The hosts are joined by Tyler Foggatt, a senior editor at The New Yorker and a die-hard “Cruise-head,” who breaks down the chapters of the actor’s career. The early “heartth...
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What Survival Stories Tell Us (and Should We Listen?)

September 24, 2026 • 50 mins
On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the perennial appeal of survival stories. They trace the theme of man versus nature from early novels like Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” to new releases like “Heart of the Beast,” in which Brad Pitt plays a grizzled veteran traversing the Alaskan wilderness with a canine companion. Survivalist themes ar...
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Introducing: “The Journey,” from In the Dark

September 20, 2026 • 56 mins
“The Journey,” a five-part audio investigation by Ava Kofman, unravels the mystery of how Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang, a wealthy Los Angeles couple, obtained dozens of children through nearly as many surrogates—and exposes a scandal that threatens to undermine the entire surrogacy industry. In Episode 1, “Gifts,” a woman in Texas agrees to carry a child for the couple. She thinks she’s helping ...
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That Back-to-School Feeling

September 17, 2026 • 46 mins
As the school year resumes, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the work—and pleasure—of teaching and learning, reflect on their own experiences in the classroom, and counsel listeners on scholastic concerns. One teacher calls in asking for texts she could assign to combat apathy among her high-school students; another is looking for works that depict the highs and lows of her chosen career; an...
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Remembering Dolly Parton

September 3, 2026 • 54 mins
Upon news of Dolly Parton’s death last week, flags across the country were lowered to half-mast. A petition circulated to rename the Nashville airport in her honor, and social media read like a greatest-hits reel of the charisma and musical acumen that made her universally beloved. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham and Naomi Fry are joined by three fellow New Yorker writers to celebrate Parton’s lif...
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What is Gen Z Afraid Of?

August 27, 2026 • 54 mins
In May, two low-budget movies from début filmmakers opened in theatres and quickly made box-office history. “Obsession” and “Backrooms,” which together have grossed nearly a billion dollars, defied conventional industry wisdom and inaugurated the burgeoning genre of “Gen Z horror.” On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by New Yorker c...
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Critics’ Cult Classics: Emily Nussbaum on “Slings & Arrows”

August 20, 2026 • 40 mins
During her tenure as The New Yorker’s television critic, Emily Nussbaum famously railed against ranking the year’s best shows; she once wrote a piece entitled “I Hate Top Ten Lists.” But naming her favorite series of all time is an easier proposition, and the honor goes to a little-known Canadian production from the early two-thousands that dramatized the colorful characters and commercial struggles of a fic...
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Critics’ Cult Classics: Hannah Goldfield on the Food World’s Secret Tastemakers

August 13, 2026 • 39 mins
In the second in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to the topic of cult classics, Naomi Fry talks with the New Yorker staff writer Hannah Goldfield about how that designation applies in the culinary realm. The two discuss specialty ingredients that appear on menus for only the briefest of moments, out-of-print cookbooks that go for hundreds of dollars on eBay, and once niche restaurants that have blown up in t...
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Critics’ Cult Classics: Hanif Abdurraqib on Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night”

August 6, 2026 • 46 mins
When it dropped in January of 1997, Camp Lo’s “Uptown Saturday Night” thrilled some listeners and confounded others. On the first in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes devoted to resurfacing beloved cult classics, Vinson Cunningham talks with Hanif Abdurraqib, a contributing writer for The New Yorker and a diehard fan of the Camp Lo project. Abdurraqib describes “Uptown Saturday Night,” wh...
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The Irony and the Ecstasy of Colson Whitehead

July 30, 2026 • 50 mins
Colson Whitehead’s ascent in the literary world has seemed, like much of what he does, impressively effortless. Though he’s best known for “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys”—both of which were awarded Pulitzer Prizes—his œuvre also includes a mystery set amid rival schools of elevator inspectors, a zombie novel, and an autobiographical coming-of-age story. On this episod...
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The Golden Age of the American Idiot

July 23, 2026 • 52 mins
The new game show “Nation’s Dumbest,” flips the classic “Jeopardy!” script on its head. The format: twelve famous-ish contestants are peppered with basic logic and trivia questions. The twist is that those who perform well are sent home, with the last one standing receiving the title of “Nation’s Dumbest.” On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandr...
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Who Owns the Odyssey?

July 16, 2026 • 50 mins
In its nearly three-thousand-year history, the Odyssey has undergone as many twists and turns as its protagonist does on his journey home to Ithaca. Its origins as oral poetry suggest countless revisions before it was even put into text—and many more followed, as translators have wrestled with how best to express Homer’s ancient Greek verse in their own languages. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, ...
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An American Playlist

July 2, 2026 • 59 mins
This week, to commemorate two hundred and fifty years of the American experiment, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz present an American playlist. On this special episode, the hosts hear from listeners regarding the songs that best encapsulate their feelings about the U.S. today—and offer some tracks of their own. The resulting compilation reflects the country’s turbulent history, its uncertain present...
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From The Political Scene: The Politics of the Big Game

June 25, 2026 • 37 mins
Critics at Large will be back next week. In the meantime, you can hear Vinson Cunningham and Naomi Fry on a recent episode of The New Yorker’s Political Scene, hosted by Tyler Foggatt, where they consider several high-profile collisions of sports and politics. First, Cunningham talks to Foggatt about Donald Trump’s controversial appearance at a Knicks game during the team’s championship run. Then Fry and Foggatt d...
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Steven Spielberg’s Blockbusters

June 18, 2026 • 55 mins
When “Jaws” hit theatres in 1975, no one—neither the studio executives involved nor the film’s twenty-six-year-old director, Steven Spielberg—was betting on its success. But it dominated at the box office and promptly revolutionized the way movies were promoted, distributed, and merchandised. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz trace how Spielberg i...
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Why We Cling to the Animal Kingdom

June 11, 2026 • 52 mins
Since the days of Aesop, stories about animals have been used to explore distinctly human values, virtues, and vices. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider such childhood classics as E. B. White’s “Stuart Little” and C. S. Lewis’s “Chronicles of Narnia” series, as well as “The Sheep Detectives,” a recent entry in this canon ...
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I Need a Critic: June, 2026, Edition

June 4, 2026 • 53 mins
This week, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz kick off the summer months with a new installment of the Critics at Large advice series. Listeners’ questions run the gamut: a high-school economics teacher seeks films for his students which aren’t set in the world of finance; a caller from Iran looks for cultural works to help endure periods of extreme uncertainty; and two friends on the cusp of college g...
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