Lifestyle
Curtis Sittenfeld Goes Home Again
There really was a woman who photocopied her butt at a workplace in the 1980s.
Curtis Sittenfeld, 49, heard about the incident when she was a girl and filed it away. Four decades later, the Great Butt Xeroxing makes an appearance in her new short story collection, “Show Don’t Tell.”
She mentioned it one day last week when she met up with her oldest childhood friend, Anne Morriss, in Cincinnati, where they had both grown up. Ms. Sittenfeld, who lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two daughters, was back in town while on tour for her latest book. Ms. Morriss, a leadership coach in Boston, was there to celebrate her mother’s 83rd birthday.
“It happened in my mother’s real estate office,” Ms. Morriss said. “I remember processing it with you. And you had questions!”
“It’s all I think about,” Ms. Sittenfeld replied.
Why did she do it? The mysteries of human behavior, along with the mortification that often follows an ill-considered act or remark, are of special interest to Ms. Sittenfeld, who made her name 20 years ago with her debut novel, “Prep.” She’s the patron saint of women who wish the floor would open and swallow them whole.
“People will have very different reactions to my writing,” she said. “People will be like, ‘I felt so frustrated by this character — they were so neurotic or cringey, and I wanted to reach into the story and shake their shoulders.’ Or people will be like, ‘I felt like you were inside my brain.’”
The two friends lined up behind a gaggle of schoolgirls at Graeter’s Ice Cream, a local favorite. They ordered cups of mocha chip (for Ms. Sittenfeld) and chocolate chip (for Ms. Morriss) and strolled to a park, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm day.
They sat on a bench and watched a group of middle-school-age girls in Uggs and leggings who were making a video of themselves doing a TikTok dance. The girls ran to their phones to watch the recording, deleted it, and did the dance again.
Ms. Sittenfeld, who was wearing New Balance sneakers and a blue heathered sweater, and Ms. Morriss, with her Hillary Clinton bob and silk scarf, didn’t look like they had inspired the haughty queen-bee characters in “Prep.” But Ms. Morriss insisted they had been “mean girls” back in middle school.
“Were we mean girls?” Ms. Sittenfeld said. “Obviously, I am a little defensive, but in middle school I would say that we were popular more than mean.”
Then she pondered her statement, as though cross-examining her own recollections.
“Actually,” she continued, “I’m sure we were mean. I unearthed some diaries recently. I read them to my own children, and one of my kids was like, ‘You should write an essay called ‘Diary of a Bitchy Kid.’”
Cracking open another childhood trauma, Ms. Sittenfeld recalled a time in eighth grade when she and Ms. Morriss had stopped being friends for a while. The split occurred during what Ms. Sittenfeld described as her own “social downfall.”
It came about because she had committed the faux pas of skipping a friend’s slumber party. After that, she found herself exiled from her usual peer group and sitting with the student council boys at lunch. She eventually felt so isolated that she ended up leaving the Midwest for the Groton School, an elite boarding academy in Massachusetts that provided her with material for “Prep.”
“You were curious about the world in a way that the rest of us weren’t,” Ms. Morriss said.
Ms. Sittenfeld took a moment to consider this.
“Let’s be honest,” she said. “I do not think that I seemed brilliant as a child — and frankly, it’s not like I think I seem brilliant now. Sometimes I’ll encounter writers and they’re so smart, and they’ve read everything there is, and it’s almost like they have an inaccessible intelligence. I would not say that I have an inaccessible intelligence.”
‘The Messiness of Life’
In “Prep,” Ms. Sittenfeld focused on a girl who pinballs between a hunger to be noticed and a desire to disappear. In the eight books she has published since, she has mined the terrain of female self-consciousness and status anxiety across all life stages.
In “Show Don’t Tell,” the story that opens her new collection, she examines the unspoken rivalry between a pair of students, a woman and a man, at a top graduate writing program. When they meet up at a hotel bar nearly 20 years later, the woman is the author of five best-sellers and the man is the winner of prestigious literary prizes.
“He’s the kind of writer, I trust, about whom current students in the program have heated opinions,” Ms. Sittenfeld writes. “I’m the kind of writer their mothers read while recovering from knee surgery.”
But here’s the thing about American women recovering from knee surgery: They are shaping the country’s political, social and cultural debates. Pundits want to know why a majority of white women voted for Donald J. Trump. Documentaries tell cautionary tales of affluent women who fall down social media rabbit holes leading to wellness influencers promoting dubious health regimens. Ms. Sittenfeld chronicles this demographic from within, not as an impartial observer.
“I’m not an ornithologist — I’m a bird,” she said, quoting Saul Bellow. And she isn’t bothered by fancy male critics who might be inclined to dismiss the people and subject matter at the heart of her work. “If I have an opinion, I should write a 1,000-word essay,” she said. “If I want to explore the messiness of life, I should write fiction.”
For years her books have captured the concerns of a group that has lately become a cultural fixation, middle-aged women who wake up one day and realize their lives aren’t exactly what they’d planned. After reading “All Fours” by Miranda July or watching Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl,” some are having frank conversations about sex and marriage; others are simply spiraling.
Ms. Sittenfeld’s heroines seem to want more than they should while bumping up against the limiting forces of age or wilted ambition. She has explored such women in best-sellers and two works selected for Reese Witherspoon’s book club. Hollywood executives who optioned her books have suggested casting stars like Anne Hathaway and Naomi Watts.
Her two teenage daughters have made it clear that they’re not particularly impressed by her career. “They see me as kind of ridiculous,” Ms. Sittenfeld said. “My 15-year-old will sometimes be like, ‘I can’t believe you write books, you seem so apart from the world.”
It helps that she lives in Minneapolis, where her husband teaches media studies, and which feels so distant from the hothouse worlds of Brooklyn and Hollywood. “Sometimes in interviews people will say to me, ‘Do you feel a lot of pressure in writing your next book?’ And I’ll think, Who would I feel pressure from?” Ms. Sittenfeld said. “Nobody cares what I’m doing.”
Still, the older Ms. Sittenfeld gets, the clearer she feels about what she wants to do in her work.
“Are you watching ‘Somebody Somewhere’?” she asked Ms. Morriss, referring to the HBO show starring Bridget Everett as a woman who returns to her hometown in Kansas. There’s a moment in the show, Ms. Sittenfeld recalled, in which the main character and her petite sister are talking about “the pencil test.”
“You put a pencil under your breast, and if it falls out it means you have perky breasts,” Ms. Sittenfeld said. “Then Bridget Everett’s character takes a big salad dressing bottle and wedges it under her enormous boobs. That is the tone of the storytelling I want to do. It’s not the person with the pencil falling out, but the person with the salad dressing bottle staying under her boobs.”
She added, “Isn’t it so weird and undignified to be a person?”
‘So Authentic’
Shortly before 6 p.m., Ms. Sittenfeld stepped into the Mercantile Library, where she was scheduled to give a talk. The library’s executive director, John Faherty, greeted her with some praise for her new book, while noting that its depictions of marriage were a bit dark.
“I was going to call you up and say, ‘Are you OK?’” he said.
“That’s not a blurb for the paperback,” Ms. Sittenfeld replied.
She and Mr. Faherty had become close through various book talks at her hometown library over the years. “I did an event here in 2016 for ‘Eligible,’” she said, referring to her modern-day retelling of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which she set in Cincinnati. “John got everyone Skyline chili.”
“I was told you can do gender reveal parties at Skyline now,” she added, referring to the restaurant chain.
“Do they say ‘boy’ with a hot dog?” Mr. Faherty asked. “I’m afraid to ask what’s for a girl.”
“The absence of a hot dog?” Ms. Sittenfeld said with a laugh.
She grabbed her phone and opened a text from her 15-year-old daughter. “We watch ‘Severance’ as a family and she was like, ‘Can I watch it by myself?’” Ms. Sittenfeld said.
“Say no and she’ll watch it anyway,” Mr. Faherty suggested.
The thrum of voices was getting louder as the crowd assembled. Ms. Sittenfeld swapped her normal New Balance sneakers for what she called her “fancy sneakers,” which were almost identical but with blue floral decals. She went to the bathroom to apply makeup — “just a little foundation,” she said.
In the main room, Ms. Sittenfeld and Mr. Faherty sat perched in front of some 225 people, an audience that included Ms. Sittenfeld’s 77-year-old mother. Ms. Sittenfeld described the sorts of questions that come up in her new book: If you eat a cup of sauerkraut with a dollop of Thousand Island dressing for lunch every day and your spouse finds that disgusting, is it his fault or yours?
The audience tittered. An older woman in a lilac sweater buried her face in her hands, giggling. When Mr. Faherty seemed on the verge of giving away a plot point, a spoiler-averse audience member shouted, “We haven’t read the book yet!” In the front row, someone knocked over a cup of wine and then got on her hands and knees to mop it up.
When Ms. Sittenfeld wrapped up her talk, readers rushed forward to ask for selfies and autographs. In Ms. Sittenfeld’s books, her characters realize over and over again that there is no escaping the embarrassment of being alive; there’s only finding somebody who will respond tenderly or, at least, with a good-natured laugh. The ache of that recognition filled the room.
Readers toted copies of “Prep” and “American Wife” that looked as if they’d been through the washing machine. One declared she had driven three hours to get there; another boasted of a book club made up of Ms. Sittenfeld’s devoted fans.
Ms. Sittenfeld’s third grade teacher, Bobbie Kuhn, sitting in the second row, said of her former student: “She’s just as authentic as she was.”
It’s the type of compliment Ms. Sittenfeld is used to receiving.
“People will be like, ‘You’re so authentic,’ which probably means you’re saying something wrong,” she said, laughing. “It’s like somebody saying you’re brave. You’re kind of like — oh no!”
With the nation’s big 2-5-0 coming up next year, NPR staff and critics recommended a lot of U.S.-focused titles for Books We Love, our annual year-end reading guide. Below you’ll find 10 favorites — perfect for the history buff on your gift list, or anyone looking to learn more about how the U.S got to where it is today. Read on, or check out our full 2025 list here.
American Grammar: Race, Education, and the Building of a Nation, by Jarvis R. Givens
In this deeply researched book, Harvard University professor of education and African American studies Jarvis R. Givens locates 1819 as a “crossroads” in the history of education in the United States. That year, Congress passed the Civilization Fund Act, providing funding for assimilative boarding schools for Native American children, and the governor of Virginia signed an anti-literacy law that made it a crime to teach enslaved people to read and write in schools. Amid the Trump administration’s effort to dismantle the Department of Education, Givens’ clear-eyed assessment of American education offers an opportunity to reflect on the long-standing relationships among race, power and schooling in the U.S. — Kristen Martin, book critic and author of The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood
The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780, by Rick Atkinson
I’ve been eagerly waiting years for this book! This is the second volume of Rick Atkinson’s trilogy on the American Revolution. Atkinson makes good use of letters and diaries. You feel like you’re in the middle of a battle, with all the sights, sounds and tragedy. Harrowing tales of hand-to-hand fighting, scalping and desperate evacuations. Fine detail: the waxed mustaches of the Hessian forces, the number of rum barrels distributed to weary and ill-clad troops, the dull thud of cannonballs smacking into ships. The stench of makeshift hospitals, with piles of limbs stacked outside. He carefully lays out how the battles began, and the successes, mistakes and missed opportunities – on both sides. — Tom Bowman, Pentagon reporter
History Matters, by David McCullough, Dorie McCullough Lawson (contributor), and Michael Hill (contributor)
If history can be a comfort read, this is it. David McCullough’s daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson and his longtime researcher, Michael Hill, assembled this posthumous collection over two years. Some of the historian’s old manuscripts and files were kept in a New England barn, so the occasional acorn and nest turned up along with the historian’s glorious observations about Americans and their history. The essay subjects are diverse – painter Thomas Eakins, Harriet Beecher Stowe in Paris, “A Book on Every Bed” (it will melt your heart). One theme emerges that you might find reassuring in its own way: There was no “simpler time.” — Shannon Rhoades, supervising senior editor, Weekend Edition
Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families, by Judith Giesberg
In 2017, historian Judith Giesberg and her team of graduate student researchers launched a website called the “Last Seen” project. It now contains over 5,000 ads placed in newspapers by formerly enslaved people hoping to find family members separated by slavery. The ads span the 1830s to the 1920s and serve as portals “into the lived experience of slavery.” In Last Seen, her book drawn from that monumental website, Giesberg closely reads 10 of those ads placed in search of lost children, mothers, wives, siblings and comrades who served in the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War. — Maureen Corrigan, book critic, Fresh Air
Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools, by Mary Annette Pember
Mary Annette Pember, a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Wisconsin Ojibwe and a national correspondent at ICT News, grew up in the 1950s and 1960s as her mother’s “secret confessor,” listening to fairy-tale-like stories of the horrors she endured at an assimilative boarding school. In Medicine River, Pember traces the repercussions of her mother’s maltreatment, situating her family’s story within the United States’ systemic use of education to eradicate Native cultures. Through an approach that is “part journalistic research, part spiritual pilgrimage,” Pember provides a cuttingly personal account of the history of federally funded Indian boarding schools and a moving look at how Indigenous traditions and rituals can light the path for healing. — Kristen Martin, book critic and author of The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood
Mother Emanuel: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church, by Kevin Sack
There was great symbolism when a white supremacist targeted Charleston’s Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, killing nine Black worshippers as a means to ignite a race war. As we learn in this deeply researched history, the congregation has been involved in the struggle for racial justice ever since it was founded in an “act of bold subversion” by enslaved and free African Americans in the 1800s. I am struck by the stories of clergy and members who fought against seemingly insurmountable odds at nearly every turn of history, truly living out their faith and believing in a better America. — Debbie Elliott, correspondent, National Desk
There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America, by Brian Goldstone
In this paradigm-shifting, immersive book, journalist and anthropologist Brian Goldstone follows five families in Atlanta who, despite working full time, struggle to stay housed amid gentrification, a lack of tenants’ rights and low wages. These families, all Black, fall into a “shadow realm” – they are not considered officially homeless by the federal government, but lack a fixed living place as they double up with friends and family, sleep in their cars, or pay exorbitant rates at extended-stay hotels. Woven throughout their stories is a trenchant exploration of how America’s disinvestment in public housing and relentless pursuit of free-market growth have fueled housing insecurity for poor working families. — Kristen Martin, book critic and author of The Sun Won’t Come Out Tomorrow: The Dark History of American Orphanhood
The War of Art: A History of Artists’ Protest In America, by Lauren O’Neill-Butler
This book is about the creative – if often short-lived and not always successful – ways in which artists have fought for social change in the U.S. since the 1960s. Personal favorite: a chapter on how the scrappy video collective, Top Value Television (TVTV), changed the public’s view of political conventions. With artist-led protests once again becoming a thing – from the thousands of actors and filmmakers who recently pledged to boycott the Israeli movie industry in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, to the presence of a 12-foot statue depicting President Trump and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein frolicking on the National Mall, this book about the past provides a powerful frame for thinking about artist-led actions today. — Chloe Veltman, correspondent, Culture Desk
We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, by Jill Lepore
As the U.S. approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding, it feels like an appropriate time to reflect on where we’re at as a country and how we got here. We the People, by Jill Lepore, a history and law professor at Harvard University, helps satisfy that impulse. It tells the story of the U.S. Constitution, which is among the world’s oldest constitutions. Lepore focuses on battles over amendments, which were fought not just by politicians but by ordinary Americans. The founders designed the Constitution to be amended, but it has become much more difficult to do so over the years. As the Constitution becomes harder to amend, Lepore writes, the risk of political violence becomes greater. — Milton Guevara, producer, Morning Edition and Up First
Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service, by Michael Lewis (editor)
Thousands of unsung heroes in the government are making life better for Americans. But because of bureaucracies being made up of bureaucrats, we rarely hear those stories. This book showcases them. Like a coal-mining safety official who helped the U.S. reach zero mine-collapse deaths. Or the man who has led the National Cemetery Administration to the top of the American Customer Satisfaction Index. As the federal government is in its biggest shake-up in a generation, it’s worth learning about where the bright spots are. — Darian Woods, host, The Indicator from Planet Money
This is just a fraction of the 380+ titles we included in Books We Love this year. Click here to check out this year’s titles, or browse nearly 4,000 books from the last 13 years.
Brown University
School Not To Blame For Shooting
… Masters Students Say
Published
A group of second-year master’s students at Brown University says the school should not be blamed for the on-campus shooting that killed two and injured several others.
The students, who live on and near campus and work on the east side of Providence, RI — near Brown — tell TMZ … they don’t agree with one narrative being spun that the Ivy League school is somehow to blame for the mass shooting.
AP
Instead, the students say gun control and lack of access to mental health services are the real issues here … and they say there’s nothing Brown can do to control those things.
What’s more, the students say there are overarching problems that need to be dealt with at the federal level … and they feel they weren’t the only school or group of students that’s feeling the brunt of gun violence and mass shootings.
Fox News
The students say there needs to be tough conversations about gun control policies … and they want to see investments made into making mental health facilities more accessible.
Law enforcement says former Brown student Claudio Manuel Neves Valente was the gunman … and the students we talked to say Brown shouldn’t be held at fault for a former student who harbored hate in his heart for those alongside him.
Fox News
The students say the response from university administration and officials is making them feel safe and heard … and they’re more proud than ever to be part of the Brown University community.
Aisha Harris’ pop culture superlatives include (clockwise from top left) Hedda, Marty Supreme, Serena Williams at the Super Bowl, Sabrina Carpenter’s lyrics, Love Island USA and Friendship.
Amazon, A24, Getty Images, Peacock/Photo illustration by Emily Bogle/NPR
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Amazon, A24, Getty Images, Peacock/Photo illustration by Emily Bogle/NPR
Well, 2025 has been a year. A year women on reality dating shows got fed up with “apolitical” men; a year a pair of filmmaking brothers both released solo projects about semi-famous athletes; a year a series finale ended in fecal waste. So much happened, and frankly, much of it feels like a blur.
For better or for worse, these cultural moments stood out.
Film’s nerdiest moment: “Aspect Ratios with Sinners Director Ryan Coogler”
YouTube
This Kodak video is a most perfect union of art and commerce, just like Sinners itself. In his distinctive, soothing Bay Area drawl, Coogler got super technical about the differences between each of his movie’s available formats, while breaking things down in easily digestible layperson’s terms. At a time when theater attendance continues to struggle, he made the best case for big screens, and he didn’t need existing IP to do it.
Best running joke at an awards show: “Thank you, Sal Saperstein!” The Studio
YouTube
In retrospect, host Nate Bargatze’s dreadful Boys & Girls Club donation bit at this year’s Emmys only made The Studio‘s parody of running gags on awards shows that much funnier. The bit starts when Adam Scott, playing himself, accepts a Golden Globe and impulsively thanks the guy who let him crash on the couch before his career took off: studio exec Sal Saperstein (Ike Barinholtz). Soon, every other winner – Quinta Brunson, Jean Smart, Aaron Sorkin, Zoë Kravitz – is thanking Sal, too. Most of them have no idea who Sal is. But even better is how each iteration of the corny, beaten-to-death joke eats away at Seth Rogen’s spotlight-seeking studio head Matt Remick.
Best Safdie brother feature: Marty Supreme
Josh Safdie (left) and Timothée Chalamet on the set of Marty Supreme.
A24
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A24
Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine is … fine: Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, in a naked play for artistic credibility, barely has to stretch to play MMA champion Mark Kerr (the wig is doing much of the “transformation”). So in the matchup of solo Safdie bro sports movies, Josh’s Marty Supreme is the clear if imperfect victor. Timothée Chalamet’s wannabe table tennis champion is absolutely insufferable from beginning to end, but the movie bucks the typical narrative and turns out to be the frenetic tale of a cocky hustler who needs — and to a point, gets — a swift ego check.
Most awkward breakup: Huda and Chris, Love Island USA
Chris Seeley (left) and Huda Mustafa in Season 7 of Love Island USA.
Peacock
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Peacock
It was obvious to everyone with eyes that chaotic “mamacita” Huda Mustafa and blasé sleepyhead Chris Seeley were never going to happen; even they knew it. So the setting for their inevitable ending could not have been more magnificent or fitting: a romantic dinner in the middle of a candlelit pond, cordial vibes quickly descending into an exchange of various grievances. (“Why won’t you cuddle with me at night?” “Why won’t you let me get my sleep?”) Then, right in the middle of their breakup, with Huda on the verge of tears, an unnamed woman in an evening gown appeared out of nowhere, waved hello, and proceeded to serenade them with “Moon River.”
Most satisfying breakups: Sara and Ben; Virginia and Devin, Love Is Blind
Ben Mezzenga (left) and Sara Carton in Season 8 of Love Is Blind.
Netflix
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Netflix
The whole premise of Netflix’s bizzarro pod-based “social experiment” is inherently political, but Season 8 was the first in which political conflict played such an unambiguous part of the dating process that the producers presumably couldn’t downplay it through clever editing. Progressive-minded Sara Carton and Virginia Miller both spent much of their on-screen time trying to get their respective fiancés, Ben Mezzenga and Devin Buckley, to discuss issues including abortion, racial justice, and queer rights. Both men repeatedly deflected and refused to take a clear stance, any stance. It took the women far too long to heed all those “apolitical” red flags, but when they finally did and ended their relationships, it felt like a triumph.
Pettiest cameo: Serena Williams at the Super Bowl Halftime Show
Serena Williams performs onstage during the Super Bowl Halftime Show on February 9, 2025.
Emilee Chinn/Getty Images
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Emilee Chinn/Getty Images
In a most pathetic move, Drake filed a lawsuit in January against Universal Music Group, the label he shares with Kendrick Lamar, for “defamation” over “Not Like Us.” Of course, Lamar performed the song at the Super Bowl anyway — but to rub salt in the wound, he brought out fellow Angeleno (and Drake’s alleged former paramour) Serena Williams, who was briefly spotted crip walking with a cool vengeance. Surely, Drake wept. (And then wept again, when a judge dismissed his suit.)
Most ridiculous mathing: Materialists
Dakota Johnson (left) and Pedro Pascal in Materialists.
A24
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A24
Credit where it’s due: Unlike most movies, Celine Song’s romantic dramedy about a matchmaker torn between a wealthy suitor and her working-class ex isn’t interested in painting wealth and class abstractly – her script engages with actual numbers to contextualize it. (Pedro Pascal’s character’s penthouse is worth $12 million!) But one data point just doesn’t add up, and that’s Lucy’s (Dakota Johnson) matchmaker salary of $80K a year before taxes while living in a spacious one-bedroom in New York City, without parental help. How?
Best Lonely Island album: Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend
YouTube
If her 2024 album Short n’ Sweet was notably cheeky and teasing, like a burlesque performance by way of a pop star, Sabrina Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend went for the broad humor of a Lonely Island-era SNL Digital Short. Nearly every track seems calibrated to be taken un-seriously, from the chintzy disco-flavored “Tears” to the yacht-rock-y “Never Getting Laid.” But the Loneliest track has to be “When Did You Get Hot?”:
Congratulations on your new improvements
I bet your light rod’s, like, bigger than Zeus’s
Hey, wait, can you lift my car with your hand?
You were an ugly kid, but you’re a sexy man
Most depressingly apt series finale: And Just Like That…
Cynthia Nixon in And Just Like That…
Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max
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Craig Blankenhorn/HBO Max
With less than 10 minutes remaining in the conclusion of a beloved decades-long franchise, a bathroom toilet overflowed with excrement. This was caused by a very minor character who’d appeared in just five episodes total (played by Victor Garber, his talents wasted). Poor Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) spent her final full scene on her hands and knees, cleaning it up. Pretty much sums up most of the AJLT viewing experience.
Sickest musical number: Mr. Milchick and his marching band, Severance
Tramell Tillman in Severance.
Apple TV
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Apple TV
I could hardly tell you anything about the plot points in Season 2 of one of the most opaque shows currently on TV, but the pure pleasure derived from watching authoritarian manager Mr. Milchick celebrate Mark’s (Adam Scott) completion of the “Cold Harbor” file cannot be denied. It’s as if a more sinister Carlton Banks joined an HBCU marching band. Tramell Tillman earned that Emmy, and this moment is a huge reason why.
Best best friend: Nikki, Dying for Sex
Jenny Slate (left) and Michelle Williams in Dying for Sex.
Sarah Shatz/FX
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Sarah Shatz/FX
When Molly (Michelle Williams) is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she’s inspired to end her unsatisfying marriage and pursue sexual pleasure for the first time. But as much as Dying for Sex is about Molly’s journey, it’s also very honest about being a full-time caretaker, through the eyes of her best friend Nikki (Jenny Slate). Nikki’s commitment to Molly becomes a full-time job, to the point that she neglects her own career and emotional wellbeing, and the strains become evident. Slate’s performance is tremendously raw and empathetic, and the friends’ unshakable bond under the worst of circumstances is the heart of the series.
Best bromance: Dennis and Roman, Twinless
Dylan O’Brien (left) and James Sweeney in Twinless.
Roadside Attractions
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Roadside Attractions
The circumstances that allow for the budding friendship between prickly gay man Dennis (writer and director James Sweeney) and dim-yet-compassionate himbo Roman (Dylan O’Brien) are knotty and uncomfortable when eventually revealed in the movie Twinless. Yet watching this unlikely duo bond over similar traumas is a sweet and funny experience; in one of the year’s best scenes, Sweeney deploys a split screen during a house party, underlining their differing personalities while drawing them even closer together. It’s complicated but they’re connected, for better or worse.
Most diabolical bromance: Craig and Austin, Friendship
Tim Robinson (left) and Paul Rudd in Friendship.
A24
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A24
Alas, the bromance between meteorologist Austin (Paul Rudd) and marketing exec Craig (Tim Robinson) in Friendship is extremely short-lived, but the fallout is catastrophic. Cringey. Awful. Dying-from-secondhand-embarrassment. Because men like Craig — men lacking any shred of social EQ or self-awareness but still desperate to forge strong friendships, like any human — can’t handle rejection. Writer-director Andrew DeYoung has crafted one of the weirdest and most apt depictions yet of the current “male loneliness epidemic.”
Most vindictive ex: Hedda, Hedda
Tessa Thompson in Hedda.
Prime
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Prime
Given all Hedda (Tessa Thompson) is up against as a mixed-race woman born to a white father out of wedlock in mid-century England, her naked ambition to maintain a high social status can be understood. But the lengths she unabashedly goes to are ice-cold, nasty, and truly unforgivable. In one lavish evening, she tries to destroy several people’s lives, but perhaps her most humiliating deed is allowing former lover and now-rival Eileen (Nina Hoss) to enter a room full of peers — all men — while Eileen is experiencing an, *ahem* wardrobe malfunction. Thompson’s commitment to Hedda’s delicious depravity is everything.
Sweetest prayer: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Josh O’Connor (left) and Daniel Craig in Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.
Netflix
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Netflix
If you’ve seen it, you know: This is the scene. After the murder of controversial firebrand Msgr. Wicks (Josh Brolin), his noted rival Rev. Jud (Josh O’Connor) is a prime suspect and looking to clear his name. While chasing a lead, Jud ends up on the phone with a chatty construction company employee (Bridget Everett), and what begins as a mildly annoying interaction becomes a tender expression of compassion when she asks him to pray for her and a sick relative. Time to solve the murder is ticking by, but Jud is called to his duty, and he beautifully serves.
Most haunting ending: It Was Just an Accident
YouTube
The past is never dead, as the saying goes, a sentiment felt acutely throughout Jafar Panahi’s timely film about Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), a former political captive who kidnaps someone he believes was one of his tormentors. The temptation for vengeance abounds, but Vahid and others wonder, to what end? Can past trauma be overcome or just merely subdued? The final quiet moment, after much has happened and been said, is the image of the back of Vahid’s head as he pauses in his tracks, having sensed the eerie presence of an all-too familiar sound. With the news that Panahi, a vocal critic of the Iranian government, has been given a year-long prison sentence and a two-year travel ban based on charges of propaganda, the ending echoes even louder.
And still more
A few honorable mentions for my 2025 pop culture yearbook:
Most charming misanthrope: Carol Sturka (Rhea Seehorn), Pluribus
Best inevitable death: Erik (Richard Harmon) and Bobby (Owen Patrick Joyner) via an MRI machine, Final Destination: Bloodlines
Breakout performers: Tonatiuh, Kiss of the Spider Woman; Miles Caton, Sinners
Best movie about an artist dad trying to reconnect with his estranged children: Sentimental Value
Worst bad show: All’s Fair
Doing the most with the least: Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Best (and ok, only) “truthstorian”: Lee Raybon (Ethan Hawke), The Lowdown
Greatest show-within-a-show: “Teenjus,” The Righteous Gemstones
Blazers Fall to Detroit Pistons in Beautiful, Ugly Bout
Thousands in one San Francisco neighborhood heading into another day without power
Mavericks vs. Pelicans Final Score: Dallas loses to New Orleans, 119-113
Russian air attack on Ukraine kills three and sparks sweeping outages
Green Line back open after closure to replace 1800s beams – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
20% of NYC mayor-elect Mamdani transition appointees have anti-Zionist ties: ADL
Exclusive: Former MEP Kaili doubles down on ‘Belgiangate’
‘Music makes everything better’: A Texas doctor spins vinyl to give patients relief
Video: Who Is Trying to Replace Planned Parenthood?
Comer summons Minnesota officials as House probes massive social services fraud
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Iowa1 week agoAddy Brown motivated to step up in Audi Crooks’ absence vs. UNI
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Iowa1 week agoHow much snow did Iowa get? See Iowa’s latest snowfall totals
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Maine7 days agoElementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine
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Maryland1 week agoFrigid temperatures to start the week in Maryland
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New Mexico6 days agoFamily clarifies why they believe missing New Mexico man is dead
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South Dakota1 week agoNature: Snow in South Dakota
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Detroit, MI1 week ago‘Love being a pedo’: Metro Detroit doctor, attorney, therapist accused in web of child porn chats
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Health1 week ago‘Aggressive’ new flu variant sweeps globe as doctors warn of severe symptoms