in conversation
Dec. 19, 2019
what were the 2010s?
Dec. 18, 2019
What Did We Just Watch? A 257-show guide to Prestige, Peak, and every other kind of TV from the past decade.
The TV Shows We Loved in 2019 Succession, Unbelievable , and more of the year’s TV standouts.
Will Mr. Robot Have a Happy Ending? Talking with showrunner Sam Esmail about paranoid thrillers, speculative fiction, and finishing up his USA drama.
the industry
Oct. 24, 2019
Disney Is Quietly Placing Classic Fox Movies Into Its Vault, and That’s Worrying It is, among other things, bad news for movie theaters that depend on repertory screenings to shore up increasingly shaky bottom lines.
Watchmen ’s Extremist Superhero Dystopia Succeeds on Sheer NerveDamon Lindelof’s follow-up series extends the landmark comic’s complex politics into an alternate present riven by racism and class anxiety.
Nancy Drew Brings the Character’s Legacy Full CircleThe CW’s new take on the iconic heroine looks less like the original “girl detective” than it does like everything she inspired.
Succession Is a Love StoryIn a very twisted way, the Succession finale is the purest expression of Kendall’s need for his father’s love.
El Camino Gives Breaking Bad Fans Exactly What They WantTrue to the spirit of Breaking Bad and classic Westerns, El Camino is fan service executed at a very high level.
Mr. Robot ’s Final Season Brings a Unique Vision Into FocusSeason four of the cyberthriller is a virtuosic culmination of everything creator Sam Esmail has built to date.
Sorry for Your Loss and The Unicorn Grapple With Grief’s Long ShadowBoth series deal in the aftermath of personal catastrophe, but only one seeks to illuminate its complicated, lingering effects.
Cillian Murphy Is Shocked That ‘Fashionistas’ Love His Peaky Blinders Haircut The versatile actor on what goes into playing a character as brutal as Tommy Shelby, as well as a few other characters from his varied filmography.
How Is The Masked Singer Real? The Masked Singer is pure escapism, but you might think you’re losing your mind.
The Politician Is Irritating, Exhausting, and Occasionally GloriousMuch like its high-school hero, Netflix’s new satirical drama from Ryan Murphy has an excess of ambition and chutzpah and a lack of meaningful ideas.
emmys 2019
Sept. 23, 2019
predictions
Sept. 20, 2019
Netflix’s Criminal Is More Thought Experiment Than Crime Procedural Spread across interrogation rooms in four countries, the series presents the notion that police work is basically the same no matter where you are.
emmy insider
Sept. 19, 2019
How Ava DuVernay Made When They See Us , the Year’s Best Miniseries A conversation about When They See Us , filmmaking, television, and American history.
Ken Burns’s Country Music Is Powerful, Beautiful, and Somehow Still Incomplete The 16-hour, eight-part series doesn’t have as firm a handle on the big-picture stuff as it wants you to think.
The Deuce Shows Its True Self in Its Final SeasonThe third and final season’s jump to the VHS era sets the stage for a reckoning with the endless churn of American economic history.
fall preview 2019
Sept. 4, 2019
The Best and Biggest TV Shows to Watch This Fall The Morning Show , Watchmen , Nancy Drew , and more.
The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Is a Staggering AchievementWatching Netflix’s new prequel to Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s 1982 feature film is like watching a ten-hour magic show.
In On Becoming a God in Central Florida, the Real Pyramid Scheme Is America Kirsten Dunst’s new Showtime series centers on a subculture desperate to transcend the financial burdens and repetitious obligations of American life.
Pose Ends an Endearingly Messy Season in Endearingly Messy Fashion“In My Heels” caps off a meandering season that too often prioritized incident over the more life-sized drama that makes the series special.
backstories
Aug. 14, 2019
Why Euphoria Feels So Real, Even When It Isn’t Realistic A conversation with creator Sam Levinson about the filmmaking, visual aesthetic, and influences behind Euphoria .
Infamy Is a New Sort of Terror A radical departure from season one, the AMC series’ newest installment sets its horror fantasy against a very different historical backdrop.
Succession Season Two Is Merciless, Cruel, and Better Than EverThe barbarian capitalists of the Roy clan are back. And so is Succession ’s acid-bath viciousness.
Dear White People Leans Into Its Difficulties in a Compellingly Messy Season 3The season is a bit of a train wreck, but it’s a glorious one, spilling food for thought everywhere.
Sherman’s Showcase Is More Than a Sketch-Comedy Nostalgia TripThe clever, sneakily weird IFC series is a glittering heap of invention that imagines a rich alternate cultural history.
Another Life Is a Clumsy Muddle of Superior Science-Fiction StoriesThe new Netflix series can’t seem to make up its mind whether to be smart and challenging or trashy and shallow.
vulture tv awards
July 24, 2019
The Best Miniseries on TV Is When They See Us It’s the Platonic ideal of what thoughtful popular art can be in this country but rarely is.
vulture tv awards
July 23, 2019
The Best-Directed Show on TV Is Better Things Pamela Adlon creates not merely a look or a tone but a worldview.
Meryl Streep Almost Saved Big Little Lies Season Two. Almost. Without Streep’s endlessly compelling performance as Mary Louise, this season would have had even less reason to exist than it already did.
vulture tv awards
July 22, 2019
2019 emmy awards
July 16, 2019
A Crowded 2019 Emmy Slate Juggles an Abundance of Good Options Peak TV is peakier than ever, and even more so than in recent years, worthy parties were bound to get left out.
Memo to CBS: Let Alan Cumming Be Alan Cumming! The network procedural Instinct harbors a freak flag that its creators and stars aren’t able to fly.
Talking With Emily Nussbaum About TV Criticism, Bad Fans, and Buffy A conversation between two New York Magazine TV critics, past and present, about the state of TV.
Years and Years Is a Gripping Account of a Society’s Existential CrisisWhen this bitter pill of an ostensibly speculative miniseries is firing on all cylinders, it plays like a fusion of This Is Us and Children of Men .
backstories
June 20, 2019
Pamela Adlon’s Filmmaking Motto: ‘The Moment Is Everything’ The writer, director, and star of Better Things on influences, inspirations, and the importance of trusting your inner voice.
Los Espookys Is Wry, Oddball Horror-ComedyThe spirit of Scooby-Doo is alive and well in this HBO comedy, though it’s more like Scooby-Doo in reverse.
Queen Sugar Returns in Fine FormFour seasons in, the series pulls off realistic family drama with such assurance that it satisfies in the manner of a much bigger, louder show.
Pose Season Two Endures a Deadly Era With Love and GraceTwo years on from season one, the world is even more dangerous for the series’s marginalized characters, and their found families even more important.
Why Paula Malcomson Came Back to Deadwood “I got to learn at the foot of a master.”
Deadwood: The Movie , At Long LastDavid Milch’s summation, benediction, and farewell to Deadwood is a story about the necessity of saying good-bye.
fosse/verdon
May 28, 2019
Nicole Fosse on Her Father, Her Mother, and Herself The daughter of Broadway legends Bob Fosse and Gwen Verdon opens up about reliving her “odd” childhood through a TV show.
What Timothy Olyphant Learned From Deadwood “Everybody knows how to steal a scene. F—king sleight-of-hand magicians, all of them.”
More Articles
