I Need a Critic: June, 2026, Edition

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 graduation ask for recommendations to guide them in their next chapter. “Art is not a thing separate from our troubles or from our awareness of the insane contingencies of life,” Cunningham says. “It’s meant as a companion and a response to those. I think that’s shining through in some of these questions.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Sorry to Bother You” (2018)
“My Architect: A Son’s Journey” (2003)
“Les dites cariatides” (1984)
“Twenty Minutes in Manhattan,” by Michael Sorkin
The photography of Eugène Atget
The music of the Notorious B.I.G., Heavy D, Fat Joe, and Big Pun
“Sentimental Education,” by Gustave Flaubert
Václav Havel’s “Audience”
“The Best of Everything,” by Rona Jaffe
“How to Murder Your Life,” by Cat Marnell
“Becoming a Centenarian,” by Calvin Tomkins (The New Yorker)
“This Old Man,” by Roger Angell (The New Yorker)
“Tabula Rasa,” by John McPhee (The New Yorker)
“Kramer vs. Kramer” (1979)
“Divorcing,” by Susan Taubes
Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels
“Ghost World,” by Daniel Clowes
“Frances Ha” (2012)
“Asparagus” (1979)
Roger Payne’s “Songs of the Humpback Whale”
“Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction,” by J. D. Salinger
The poetry of Sylvia Plath, particularly “Tulips”
Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America”
“I Will,” by the Beatles
“St. Judy’s Comet,” by Paul Simon
“Sail Away Ladies,” by Odetta

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.

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