Pop Culture Happy Hour

A Different World

Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 28 min

The TV series A Different World has loomed large in the culture since ending in the ‘90s, and now school is back in session in a new sequel series on Netflix. The show welcomes a new generation of students to the fictional HBCU Hillman College, and brings back notable alumni like Whitley Gilbert (Jasmine Guy) and Dwayne Wayne (Kadeem Hardison). And while the world is a lot different than it was 30

Fall Guide

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 32 min

This fall, there’s a lot of movies and TV on tap for you to see. And we're as excited for all of it to arrive as you are. So we’ve got a guide to what’s worth keeping on your radar, including Wicker, Wildwood, Wild Horse Nine, Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother and Avatar: Seven Havens.Looking for more buzzy movie recommendations? Check out these episodes: ‘Resident Evil' is a grisly, funny fight

Youth

Wed, 21 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 16 min

We all love actor/writer Sharon Horgan, and she’s got a new show on HBO called Youth. Horgan stars as Alex, a 50-year-old divorcée who finds herself at several simultaneous personal and professional crossroads. But where does this new show fall in the Horgan canon? Is it essential, or is it more of a vestigial Horgan?Looking for more TV and movies about navigating mid-life?  Check out these episod

Crew Girl

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 17 min

The Netflix TV show Crew Girl follows in the footsteps of successful coming-of-age dramas like Sterling Point and The Summer I Turned Pretty. It follows Teagan, an ambitious high school rower (Miku Martineau) trying to fit in on the boys’ crew team at a fancy prep school. The show’s got a plucky fish out of water, a love triangle with two very different boys (Kyle Clark and Sam Braun), and a dream

Other Mommy

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 14 min

The trailer for the movie Other Mommy went viral when it dropped a few months ago. It dominated the box office this weekend, but was panned by critics. But is it really one of the worst movies of the year? It’s about a 7-year-old girl who is visited by a mysterious entity who takes the form of her mother, played by Jessica Chastain. It’s a lean, intense horror film full of dark family secrets and

East of Eden

Wed, 07 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 22 min

A new series on Netflix is taking a bold crack at the American classic. Maybe you read John Steinbeck’s East of Eden in school. Or maybe you’ve seen the very loosely-adapted film starring James Dean. Anchored by a fantastic Florence Pugh performance, this new adaptation follows multiple generations of the Trask family. The series is an epic retelling of their story that offers a fresh perspective

Forgotten Island

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 14 min

Forgotten Island is a wonderful new animated feature from the team that brought you Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. We’re introduced to childhood friends Jo (H.E.R.) and Raissa (Liza Soberano). One is a free spirit, the other an aspiring scientist, and they’re both getting ready to go their separate ways. But during their last night together, they’re transported to a magical isla

Wildwood

Tue, 27 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 15 min

Wildwood is one of the best movies of the year. It’s an epic stop-motion animated saga about a young girl trying to rescue her brother, and it’s filled with raging battles, fantastical animals and a voice cast featuring Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Angela Bassett, and Tom Waits. Wildwood was made by Laika, the studio behind Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings. If you’re looking for other grea

Sense and Sensibility

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 20 min

A new Jane Austen adaptation is going to give you love, family and honor, repressed emotions and probably financial peril that can only be resolved through marriage. A new film version of Austen's Sense and Sensibility touches on those familiar themes with the Dashwood family, which include the two oldest sisters Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles). They are, in true Austen

2026 Emmys recap

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:17:23 +0000 · 24 min

This year’s Emmys were a big night for shows we really love, including Widow’s Bay, The Pitt and Pluribus. Actors Jean Smart and Matthew Rhys picked up wins, and Rhys made some history. And we’ll explain why we love Mariska Hargitay, who proved to be a game yet corny host. Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks f

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 25 min

Mahershala Ali’s new movie isn’t the Blade reboot, but it’s still worth your time. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother follows a newly widowed hitman who wants out of the game. He's also a devout Muslim, and after his wife’s death, he is forced to adjust to being a single dad to three kids, while trying to balance his work and faith. But his boss (Laith Nakli) has other plans for him.If you’re loo

The scariest movie I’ve ever seen

Thu, 29 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 26 min

Do you like scary movies? It's spooky season, so what better way to get into the Halloween spirit than plopping down in front of a film engineered to scare your pants off. Today, in this encore episode, we’re revisiting our conversation about the scariest movie we've ever seen – including The Babadook, Event Horizon, The Night of the Hunter, and… Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.Looking for more spooky sea

Jay-Z

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 26 min

Jay-Z has been everywhere lately. It’s been 30 years since his acclaimed debut Reasonable Doubt, and he celebrated with a series of concerts at Yankee Stadium. And now there’s the HBO docuseries, JAŸ-Z In 8, in which Jay-Z dissects his catalog with producer Rick Rubin. The series hopes to further cement his legacy as one of the most revered lyricists of our time. But Jay-Z (or JAŸ-Z, as he’s style

Last Seen

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 17 min

The new Apple TV series Last Seen is a compelling thriller. It stars Patrick Brammall (Colin from Accounts) as an emergency dispatcher named who gets a call one night from a girl he thinks might be his long-missing daughter. The show follows him as he becomes obsessed with finding the truth, even at the cost of his own stability and sobriety. It also tackles some thorny questions about who stands

The Lowdown

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 18 min

The great FX series The Lowdown stars Ethan Hawke as a freelance investigative reporter with a knack for sticking his nose where it doesn't belong and getting that nose punched. He gets drawn into the seedy goings-on of one of Tulsa's most prominent families. Created by Sterlin Harjo (Reservation Dogs), the modern-day Western noir comedy has an excellent ensemble including Kyle MacLachlan, Keith D

The Love Hypothesis

Mon, 28 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 26 min

The Love Hypothesis brings the beloved trope of fake dating to the world of science and academia – but does it bring a fresh take to the bestselling book by Ali Hazelwood? The new Prime Video movie follows Stanford graduate student Olive (Lili Reinhart). Her best friend Anh (Rachel Marsh) is holding back from pursuing a guy because she thinks Olive is interested in him. Olive wants Anh to follow h

Clayface

Mon, 26 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 15 min

Clayface brings R-rated body horror to this origin story of a Batman villain. The film stars Tom Rhys Harries as an actor whose dream life crumbles after an encounter with a mob boss leaves him disfigured. Desperate for a solution, he receives a revolutionary procedure involving nanotechnology powered by AI. What could go wrong? Director James Watkins goes hard on the horror elements, but is the D

Great documentaries you don’t want to miss

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 22 min

We talk a lot about movies and TV shows, but new documentary films sometimes can sometimes get lost in the shuffle. So today we’re highlighting some new documentaries that are worth your time and you don’t want to miss – including Remake, The History of Concrete, Black Zombie, The Oldest Person in the World, and You Had to Be There.Looking for more films that might have flown under your radar? Che

Whalefall and What's Making Us Happy

Mon, 19 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 16 min

Guy meets whale; complications ensue. That's basically the plot of the new survival thriller Whalefall. It stars Austin Abrams as Jay, who goes diving in search of his deceased father (Josh Brolin) – and is swallowed by a whale. Based on the book by Daniel Kraus, the movie also has a lot to say about fathers and sons, as well as the lessons they have to teach each other.If you’re looking for more

Carrie

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 18 min

The new series Carrie updates the Stephen King book for the digital age, and plays with what we think we know in some surprising ways. Streaming on Prime Video, it follows a young Carrie who has led a sheltered life with her overbearing mother. But as Carrie enters high school, she has a rough go of it. The signposts are familiar – the showers, the prayer closet, the prom, the pig’s blood – but sh

Verity

Mon, 05 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 23 min

Verity stars Dakota Johnson as a struggling novelist who gets an unusual assignment. She's been asked to ghostwrite the final books by a superstar writer, played by Anne Hathaway. It’s an erotic thriller about marriage, manipulators, and (of course) murder. Based on Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel, Verity is a story of deceit that wants you to keep guessing until the very end, and maybe even af

VisionQuest

Mon, 02 Nov 2026 08:00:00 +0000 · 18 min

The new Disney+ show VisionQuest is the latest Marvel television series, and it’s one of the good ones. It’s the conclusion of the trilogy that began with WandaVision and continued through Agatha All Along, reuniting actors Paul Bettany, who plays the synthezoid Avenger named Vision, and James Spader, who returns as Ultron. The show is a timely parable about artificial intelligence, and it’s yet a

War and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 30 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 24 min

Nothing’s fair in love and war — and it's especially true in the very watchable HBO series War. Dominic West and Sienna Miller play a high-profile British couple duking it out in a high-stakes divorce. And the cutthroat litigation between the law firms representing them threatens to rival any of the marriage drama they’ve got going on. War was created by George Kay, who is also behind shows like L

Primetime and What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 25 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 23 min

The new docudrama Primetime is a weird and highly fictionalized account of the meteoric rise of To Catch a Predator. Robert Pattinson plays host Chris Hansen, who is struggling to get bigger ratings. Hansen and his team work with local law enforcement to drag the accused sexual abusers of minors before the camera and arrest them. But does director Lance Oppenheim’s highly stylized approach work, o

Wicker and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 23 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 30 min

Wicker is somehow the coziest and horniest movie of the fall. Olivia Coleman and Alexander Skarsgård star as the unlikely couple: She’s a fisherwoman who commissions a husband literally made of wicker. The newly-kindled romance upends their small medieval town, where the men are the worst and the women are — surprise surprise — bored and unsatisfied with their own husbands.Are you looking for more

Resident Evil and What's Making Us Happy

Fri, 18 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 21 min

The new Resident Evil movie is wild, scary, inventive, fast-paced, and funny. That’s because the videogame-turned-film franchise got a reboot courtesy of director Zach Cregger (Weapons and Barbarian). Austin Abrams plays a medical courier tasked with transporting an important medical MacGuffin, and his journey goes haywire almost immediately as gnarly perils pile up. But does the movie’s blend of

You Can See Everything

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 25 min

About a month before Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes went to prison for defrauding her investors, she and her partner Billy Evans invited a film crew to document their lives at home with their kids. And they didn't make a deal with a conventional filmmaking team. They connected with Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim. Fielder’s unusual nonfiction work blurs the lines between truth and artifice,

Practical Magic 2 and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 29 min

In Practical Magic 2, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman return as witch sisters doomed by a family curse that means any man they love will die. They embark on a new chapter where the next generation is discovering the dangers of being born into this family. It’s been over 25 years since the original film. But will practical moviegoers be swept up in the magic twice?If you are gearing up for the wit

The Social Reckoning and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 26 min

Don’t call it a sequel: The Social Reckoning is a companion piece to The Social Network. While the first movie chronicled the invention of Facebook, this one focuses on where Facebook is now. Jeremy Allen White stars as a crusading reporter alongside Mikey Madison, a Facebook insider with damning information about the business’ practices. The film also features Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg. Wr

Digger and What’s Making Us Happy

Fri, 02 Oct 2026 07:00:00 +0000 · 22 min

Digger is a loud, surprising, audacious, and sure-to-be-polarizing entry in this year’s Oscars race. The film stars Tom Cruise as a powerful oil baron who’s helped unleash an existential threat on the world — but that’s only the beginning. The looming devastation attracts the attention of the president (John Goodman) and a well-intentioned scientist (Riz Ahmed). The film takes some pretty big narr